Robin Fitzl (where?) asks:

>>Since all the IHC is sent out from this lab and turnaround is an issue. 
This [pathologist] would like to know if a melanin stain (Schmorl's?) would 
be just as 
good as doing a S-100 or HMB-45 offsite.<<

Definitely not. Immune stains are an enormous improvement over earlier 
techniques such as "melanin stains" and frozen-section tyrosinase. Let's not 
give up ground gained. The patient needs the right answer, not a fast answer. 
Management at many of the small hospitals I work in is saying no immune 
stains in house, ever. If that's the way it is, they've gotta be sent out.

I don't understand the other question, about foreign matter in cytologic 
preparations.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN