Standardization of Manual Method of Immunohistochemical Staining for Breast Cancer Biomarkers at Tertiary Cancer Care Center: An Audit

Abstract

Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is a necessary ancillary technique in surgical pathology laboratories, particularly for oncology tissue specimens. Automation in the IHC technique has an advantage over manual methods in terms of quality, except for the cost of the equipment. Thus, the manual method of IHC staining is the preferred method of choice in countries with limited resources. However, standardization of all steps in the preanalytic phase is critical to obtain reliable immunohistochemistry test results. The current audit was conducted to describe the preanalytic factors affecting manual IHC methods. The most important preanalytic factors were fixative, the composition of dehydrate, pH, drying of sections, and heat-mediated antigen retrieval method (HMAR). The domestic pressure cooker method was found to be the best for HMAR.