On July 12, 2011, the FDA released a new draft guidance on the development and review of companion diagnostics (CDx). I would encourage anyone working in anatomic pathology to review the draft, as it will have widespread impact on digital pathology companies, antibody providers, and a

We do a lot of projects involving comparing a protein’s expression in the nucleus versus cytoplasm. Many proteins show activation upon translocation from cytoplasm to nucleus. Below are some example steps that we perform to obtain a measurement of the ratio on a cell-basis. Ther

The fifth annual retreat kicked off on Monday in sunnny Miami Florida in a packed room of 120 pathologists. Every year this conference provides the most in-depth analysis and discussion of best practices in immunohistochemistry. Below are some notes on the first day: Conference starte

Bridge Staining with Multimodal Scanning. In the images below each slide has been scanned once in brightfield and once in fluorescence, using dyes with multimodal scanning compatibility. The upper image is autofluorescence, in the lower image the DAPI has a very similar staining patte

1. Consecutive tissue sectioning. 4 µm sections are cut sequentially and stained. A central slide is used as a reference slide, with special stains to assist in automated feature analysis, as necessary. Two to four serial sections above and below the reference slide are stained with t

Lung is a notoriously difficult organ for conducting reproducible image analysis, due to both the challenges of consistent histology processes in lung tissue and the heterogeneity of various normal and neoplastic pulmonary features. Below is an example of how histology pattern recogni

You wouldn’t dream of downhill skiing without a rating system. The beginners can stay off the tough slopes and the pros get to debate whether the black run of Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin Pallavicini is tougher than any double diamond at Breckenridge.  We need the same rating

There have been some exciting developments in work to expand the number of markers that can be measured in tissue. The constraints are cost and regulatory acceptance. Multiplexing of proteins in soluble samples (e.g. serum, plasma, urine) have advanced to true high-throughput, with ar

(CISH (Chromogenic In-Situ Hybridization) is a new technique first published by Tanner and his collegues (Am J Pathol 2000, 157:1467-1472). It will likely prove to be much more economical than FISH (FISH can range up to ten times the cost of IHC), and can be conducted with an ordinary

If there is one image analysis question we hate, it is, “Can you perform image analysis on this badly overstained slide?”. The answer is frequently “No”.   Although in some circumstances, image analysis can overcome issues of overstaining , nonspecific staning