Determining if Residual Eosin From Dehydration and Clearing Solutions Has an Effect on Immunohistochemistry

Abstract

Abstract Objectives Immunohistochemistry is a diagnostic stain that gives more specificity in testing for a disease and/or condition of patient tissue. Moore Regional Hospital is on the cusp of the LEAN Principle and currently in the early stages. The histology laboratory encountered a “waiting waste” problem due to two areas of histology sharing a common instrument. It is proposed to create a protocol on the Tissue-Tek Prisma stainer specifically for running down immunohistochemistry slides using the same alcohols and xylenes within the current H&E staining protocol. Research is scarce on whether residual eosin, from the dehydrating and coverslip phase, has an effect on immunohistochemistry morphology. Materials Three trial runs were conducted using a cytokeratin immunohistochemistry control. Each trial had dependent variables of staining times, staining parameters, and the changes of alcohol and xylenes. Cytokeratin is a feasible slide to use considering time stipulations and due to its prominent positivity. The instruments used in this validation were the BenchMark Ultra and the Tissue-Tek automatic stainer. The reagents used in this validation were the DAB chromagen, Hematoxylin (Ventana), Bluing (Ventana), Xylene (Cardinal), and Alcohol (Cardinal). Results Interpretations concluded that residual eosin does not have any direct artifact or undesirable outcomes. However, minor findings were noted on how the depar solutions did affect the visual quality of the cytokeratin. Conclusions Pros and cons were discussed in terms of moving forward with this process and improving the overall quality of the histology laboratory. It was decided that the lab move forward with the process or automatically running immunoslides down in automatic stainer. The overall quality of the slides improved due to the decrease in human variability and there is time added for the IHC tech to complete other tasks.