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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2020
The standardization of IHC has been a critical issue since 1977. The most significant challenge for the standardization of routine IHC may be the adverse influence of formalin, which is in part due to variable periods of formalin-fixation ranging from 12 hours to days or weeks, resulting in variable intensity of immunostaining for formalin sensitive antigens. The world-wide use of the AR technique for IHC in both clinical and research histopathology has demonstrated that the AR is a breakthrough in pathology. Based on numerous studies of AR-IHC with excellent results for a variety of interesting markers used in diagnostic pathology, the possibility has been raised that AR technique may be useful in the standardization of IHC. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the possibility of standardization of IHC based on the ‘test battery‘ approach for establishing an optimal protocol of AR in order to achieve a state of ‘maximal retrieval’, showing a equal comparability of AR-IHC staining of archival paraffin-embedded tissues under varying periods of formalin-fixation.