What 2022 is bringing to the Journal of Histotechnology and its first issue of the year

The beginning of 2022 is much like 2021 with hopes that the COVID pandemic fades away forever. Hopefully, our colleagues in clinical and research histotechnology can return to a normal status for staffing and product shortages to provide the needed care to patients. The Journal of Histotechnology (JOH) 45 Anniversary Special Issue on Ocular Histology will be a way of celebrating the many years our journal has been published. There is a call for the submissions to this special issue with two guest editors, Drs. Yongfu Wang and Sanming Li. Please look for this call for manuscripts on the JOH webpage, the National Society for Histotechnology website, and social media as there is a submission deadline. This first 2022 issue has two papers on decalcification for two different animal models. Marinopoulos and colleagues compared and optimized two decalcification techniques along with the H&E stain and an immunohistochemical assay on the rat maxilla and mandibles for their toxicology studies. The photo figures are outstanding, particularly the teeth – one of the most difficult tissues to work with in the histology laboratory. The other comes from Cecily Broomfield and group with a detailed study of much larger, dense ovine spine and shoulder bone samples to compare six decalcification methods to achieve increased cellular detail. As they pointed out, decalcification procedures in the literature for murine and lapin bone are “welldocumented” but not for ovine bone. The study of fallopian tube anatomy and mechanical properties to know pressure limits via endoscopic examination by Rice et al. used to determine the origin of early-stage ovarian cancer, inflammatory disease, and infertility in women was very interesting. Once again, an animal model (pig) was used along with human tissues to test their methods. Immunohistochemical studies on factors having a role in tumor carcinogenesis, differentiation, and prognosis continue and even used as a therapeutic target are ongoing as seen in the paper on urinary bladder cancer by Reman Sameh group. The case study by Vincek and Rudnik pointed out that the Melan-A marker cross reacts with Molluscum contagiosum cutaneous lesions, particularly in challenging cases with highly inflamed or minimal samples when the H&E may not establish a diagnosis. Case histories are very popular and I hope more are submitted to the journal in the future. How many histotechnicians are aware the eosinophils can be stained green instead of the commonly seen red color from eosin? Take Tony Henwood’s Test Your Knowledge quiz and learn more about other methods with different dyes used to detect eosinophils and earn CEU credits. My compliments to the authors and their colleagues for submitting interesting, informative articles, especially the finely detailed methods and materials for histotechniques used in their studies. We encourage others who submit a manuscript to this journal to do the same as we remain very technology oriented to use and/or repeat the methods. Happy belated New Year to all.