We are still trying to figure out how we want to handle the recent problems (false positives) with the reformulated cells. It appears that many of you may be rotating vials in and out of the refrigerator at a predetermined number of hours. We are considering aliquotting our screening cells instead, and using a 24 hour room temp expiration. We are experimenting with volumes now to see what might be an adequate daily volume. What are your thoughts regarding QC in this instance? If we ran out mid-day and wanted to pull another set of cells that were aliquotted, do you think qc needs to be run? Or do you think that as long as we know that we are still on the same set of vials, the daily qc is adequate?

How is the swapping vials in and out of the refrigerator working for those of you doing that? At how many hours are you swapping? Did you decide to qc each set?

Thanks,

Cathy

We have seperate set for each shift. (total 3 set). We run QC only on one set.

Our correlation studies with the reformulated cells were ruff at best. In order to keep our reagents stable, we rotate our racks every eight hours. We have two manual racks that are QC'd daily in the am. We also have three separate racks for our analyzer, which we switch out every 8 hours and run QC on once every 24 hours.

We are having a terrible time this month. I think I am even seeing some non-specific reactions with our panels which usually live in the fridge. At least, several samples on which I have done additional tests using 3% cells made into 0.8% lost all the fuzzy weak reactions and only kept the real anti-K etc. These could be antibodies to gel constituents but they don't react in all pre-diluted cells. I am about ready to go to diluting up our 3% cells ourselves every day. Sheesh!

We were having the same trouble that you have been experiencing with the new Ortho 0.8% screening cells. We went to aliquoting about 1 ml of each screening cell for each of our reagent racks and then discarding anything remaining after a 24 hour period. We only QC the cells once each day. This seems to have worked well for us and has cleared up the false positives that we had been seeing.

Are you just aliqouting into pour-off tubes, or saved reagent vials or what?

We are aliquotting 1ml samples into plain plastic tubes. I am so thrilled to be seeing good, clear-cut negatives again! Our original vials are 10ml, so we are doing one set at a time and assigning a 24hr room temp expiration. We have yet to throw any away. We are using Bar-One software for labeling the aliquots. We actually use this software for many appliations throughout the lab.

We are also seeing some not-so-clear-cut negatives on panel cells as well. Fortunately this week we are not pulling out the panels so much!

I'm with you Mabel, if the aliquotting didn't work we were going to start diluting the 3% daily.

I'm curious as to how others are storing the gel cards. Since the requirement is 2-25'C, (I think - I don't have them in front of me) are all of you storing cards at room temp or refrigerated?

Incidentally, we spin all of our cards prior to use. We started this at some other time when we couldn't seem to get good negative reactions!

We store our cards in the frig except for the ones that are being used. We have not had many problems with the 0.8 cells.

We store ours in referi. but take them out before the start of our shift. Basically bring them at room temp before use.

I do not know why would you spin the card before use? Did you check with ORTHO? Is it ok to do it?

We store our cards in the fridge except for a rack or two in use. Spinning before use is okay. It helps get splashed or condensed liquid back into the column. We only do it if visible problem with cards.

We are rotating 2 sets of cells at 12 hours on the ProVue. We were rotating at 24 hours and seeing the false positives. Since switching to 12 hours I haven't seen any of the false reactions.

We qc each set because our Joint Commision standards says that each open vial must be qc'ed each day.

We store our cards at room temp and only spin them if they appear to need it.