9
CLEANING AND PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE
MANDATORY CLEANING PROTOCOL
It is necessary to clean the MD-Stainer on a recommended timely basis to maintain the reliability, shelf
life of the system and the staining quality.
1.
CLEANING OF THE MODULES AND HOT PLATES (DAILY)
The modules must be cleaned every day to remove any reagent remains and avoid any
accumulation in the instrument.
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Unload all the slides from the system.
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It is recommended to use blotting paper,
smooth, that cleans the excess that remains
after the staining cycle both on the modules and on their surroundings.
2.
CLEANING AND INSPECTION OF THE INCUBATION CHAMBERS (DAILY)
In order to avoid the accumulation of salts and reagent waste during the staining cycle, the
chambers must be cleaned every day. During the cleaning, you must look for any cracks, leaks
or degradation on the chamber surface.
To do this, after every staining cycle, clean the surface of the chambers with an alcohol swabs
(Reference: MAD-MDSCW - Cleaning wipes for MD-Stainer). It is not necessary to remove the
chambers from the instrument.
If, during the cleaning, you spot any anomalies on the chamber such as cracks and/or
degradation when pressing the chamber, you must replace it with a new incubation chamber
(Reference: MAD-CH36 - Incubation Chambers for MD-Stainer).
3.
THOROUGH CLEAN OF THE CHAMBERS
If you only use the MD-Stainer to perform FISH (automatic or semiautomatic), there is not a
specific periodicity for the thorough cleaning of the chambers, since none of the reagents used
make them dirty. Therefore, the correct execution of the cleaning and daily inspection of the
chambers is enough to keep them in a good state up to the end of their shelf life.
The cleaning is
obligatory
indeed on a weekly basis as long as that the system itself combines
immunohistochemistry techniques, CISH and FISH. Refer to the user manual or the quick guides
for Immunohistochemistry and/or CISH for a correct cleaning.
4.
REPLACEMENT OF ALL THE INCUBATION CHAMBERS
For the FISH technique, the incubation chambers have an estimated shelf life according to the
frequency and number of preparations performed in each FISH cycle. Thus, as an orientation,
for about 1500 preparation/year, it is estimated that the replacement of chambers would be
necessary every three months, as long as the considerations described above are taken.
