Hi. Coming to the histonet for help again.

One of my pathologists (Neal Goldstein, MD), will be presenting
at the NSH S/C in Rhode Island at the Saturday Plenary Session
on Immunohistochemistry, hosted by the Soc. of Applied IHC.

He would like to gear his talk on "Antigen Preservation in
Unstained Tissue Sections" towards the people who will be
attending. He is talking about QC/QA of antigen preservation.

I've answered his questions the best I can to help him, 
but there are a couple that have me stumped.

PLEASE RESPOND DIRECTLY TO ME, NOT HISTONET. I'll give
a summary to histonet.    Lpwenk@netquest.com

1. What methods are being used by what percent of users
for staining IHC?

Dr. Goldstein would like to know what percent of people/labs
are using:

A. Vantana autostainer

B. Dako or Biogenex autostainer

C. Kits

D. "home made" system (e.g. conc. primary and secondary
that the lab titers out)

(I'm assuming C & D are staining by hand.)

Does any Technical rep happen to know? Even a 
"gut level" feeling would be helpful.

Would histonetters be willing to let me know what 
they are using? Especially if they are attending
the Plenary session.

2. What is the expected IHC knowledge level of people
attending the Plenary Session?

My "gut level" feeling was that someone with no
experience or very little in IHC would PROBABLY NOT
attend this session. I felt that the people who
would chose this session would probably have
IHC experience.

I told Dr. Goldstein that I thought he (and the
others presenting) probably didn't need to start
as basic as:
- what is an antigen
- what is an epitope
- what is an immunoglobulin
- etc. on the very basic information

If this were a state meeting, I would say that
the very basic information would need to be
stated. However, since a higher percentage of
people attending are supervisors who have been
in the field for many years, and have probably
taken IHC basic workshops before, I thought
he and the other presenters could skip the
very basics.

Am I off base with this? Should they start
at a more basic level?

Please respond DIRECTLY TO ME, and let
me know your thoughts. It might be
helpful if we know if you are a technical
rep with "inside" information, if you
are a tech letting me know how you do it
at your lab, and if you will be attending
the Plenary Session.

Also, if you have any specific IHC questions
for the speakers, why don't you send them 
along to me, and I'll see that they get 
asked during the Q&A portion of this session.
I can't attend the session (I'm liaisoning
at another workshop being given at the same
time by another pathologist from our hospital),
but maybe some nice histonetter could
write down some of the interesting Q&A and
pass them along to the histonetters. (Any
volunteers?)

Thanks for your help.

Peggy A. Wenk, HTL(ASCP)
William Beaumont Hospital
Royal Oak, MI 48073