Test slides and methods of production in stain assessment
AssigneesThe Leeds Teaching Hospitals Nhs Trust, University of Leeds
InventorsDavid Brettle, Darren Treanor, Catriona Marie Dunn
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Abstract
A QA test slide for use in a stain QA method for a stain and method of making QA test slides are described. The QA test slide comprises: a transparent substrate; a piece of biopolymer material mounted on the transparent substrate; and a sticker defining an aperture and adhered to the transparent substrate over the piece of biopolymer material and with a portion of the piece of biopolymer material exposed by the aperture and wherein a machine readable code is borne by the sticker and the machine readable code encodes a unique identifier for the QA test slide.
Claims31
A quality assurance (QA) test slide for use in a stain QA method for a stain, the QA test slide comprising:
- a transparent substrate;
- a piece of biopolymer material disposed on the transparent substrate;
- and
- a sticker defining an aperture and adhered to the transparent substrate over the piece of biopolymer material so that the sticker secures the piece of biopolymer material to the transparent substrate, a portion of the piece of biopolymer material being exposed by the aperture with the sticker completely encircling the portion of the piece of biopolymer material that is exposed, and wherein a machine readable code is borne by the sticker and the machine readable code encodes a unique identifier for the QA test slide.
A method of making QA test slides for use in a stain QA method for a stain, the method comprising:
- cutting a plurality of pieces of biopolymer material from a sheet of biopolymer material;
- fixing a test piece of the plurality of pieces of biopolymer material to a microscope slide;
- staining said test piece using a freshly made batch of the stain;
- determining whether a colour of the stained test piece is sufficiently similar to a reference colour;
- fixing those of the plurality of pieces of biopolymer material cut from a region of the sheet associated with the test piece to a transparent substrate of a respective microscope slide when the colour of the stained test piece is sufficiently similar to the reference colour to form a plurality of QA test slides;
- assigning a unique reference to each of the plurality of QA test slides;
- and
- adhering a respective sticker, defining an aperture therein, to the transparent substrate of each corresponding respective microscope slide and over the piece of biopolymer material fixed to the transparent substrate of the corresponding respective microscope slide so that the sticker secures the piece of biopolymer material to the transparent substrate, a portion of the piece of biopolymer material being exposed by the aperture with the sticker completely encircling the portion of the piece of biopolymer material that is exposed, and wherein a machine readable code is borne by the sticker and the machine readable code encodes the assigned unique reference for each QA test slide.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.