An iOS App to Expedite the Evaluation of Immunohistochemistry Control Tissue

Control tissues play a vital role in diagnostic immunohistochemistry. They serve to document that the appropriate antibody was used, on the correct control tissue, and run on optimized conditions. As part of the evolving process of standardization in diagnostic immunohistochemistry, specific tissues have been identified based on agreement by experts in this field capable of serving as the benchmark(s) for several antibodies. These tissues are recommended based on known and predictable levels of strong, weak, and no expression of the antigen being queried. These tissues can be used for positive and negative control purposes, respectively, and are regarded as primary positive and/or negative external control tissue. If some of these tissues are not present in sufficient numbers in a laboratory’s archive for daily use, they can still be used as the basis to evaluate other tissues that are not as well characterized and chosen to serve as secondary and external positive controls. In this manner, either the former or latter can function as external positive and negative control tissue for the quality assurance of immunohistochemistry done in a laboratory. The use of the selected tissues may be applicable to the detection of several different antigens by a number of separate antibodies, with differences in the staining of specific cells or the localization in staining within those cells. However, the amount of information needed to be familiar with to render a correct interpretation of the control tissue may prove daunting. One means of dealing with this problem would be to create a document capable of serving as a reference guide. Traditional types of references, however, may suffer from issues related to convenience, updating, and mobility. Herein we describe a mobile device application (app) created to serve as a reference for control block tissues. This app can capably house and easily retrieve all the relevant information on all the antibodies and their respective control tissues in a laboratories test menu, thus enabling the use of standardized tissues as control material and spreading the ability to perform immunohistochemical quality control to individual pathologists.