Dear Colleague,
if there be an abscence of CAP or other Guidelines, then I beleive it is
sufficient to state in your SOPM that they are stored the same as all other
processed tissues/ blocks/slides etc., along with all the temp variations
humidity etc. This in fact would probably be more acceptable to the
scientific purist who could then say "They have been treated in an identical
fashion" at least for retrospective studies. In any case you will need to be
able to document this and also prove that there is little or no
deterioration and so you must make a retrospective comparison  on a regular
basis and record the results - it's not as difficult as it sounds and
there's little or no increase in workload.
Regards Mike Rentsch (Downunder)
-----Original Message-----
From: gossg@po.lab.ccf.org <gossg@po.lab.ccf.org>
To: Histonet@pathology.swmed.edu <Histonet@pathology.swmed.edu>
Date: Saturday, 17 October 1998 6:48
Subject: IMMUNO QUESTION on CAP CHECKLIST


>This is a stupid question to those of you who do immuno all the time, but
I'm
>totally foreign to this area & my supervisor couldn't give me an answer.
>Question 08:2260 Phase II
>Are control slides and/or tissues stored properly to ensure antigen
retention?
>She said she stores everything at room temp & the inspector asks her if
this was
>the recommended guideline & she said she didn't know that's just what they
do.
>(Yes I know. One heck of a sup!) Anyway are there recommended guidelines
that I
>can find somewhere?
>Thanks for any help.
>