[Histonet] Re: Non-gyn cytology prep - amount processed?

[Robert Richmond]

Cathy Crumpton asks (the message seems to have gotten garbled in transmission):

>> Hi  all,  for those of you who also work with cytology - what is   procedure  for  fluids  that  have  a large volume?  How much of the    fluid do you process? - I  am  wanting to compare our polic   instance  this  week  where  we received   processed  100  mL  of that after making sure it   first  cell blocks only contained fibrin, but the   malignant  cells.   When we went back to the contai   settled  after  24  hours so we poured off the top part of t   and  only  processed  the gunk at the bottom.  The second time t   were  malignant  cells in the cell block.  My pathologist is pushin   for us to process 100% of the fluids, 100% of the time, saying what we  cu   get those<<

You certainly cannot process an entire large liquid specimen for
cytologic examination - many pleural fluid specimens are well over a
litre. There are a number of ways to prepare a cell block from such a
specimen - an important adjunct to the cytologic examination
examination of such fluids. A lot of laboratories have trouble
preparing cell blocks consistently.

I'd suggested getting a method from a cytopathology service that has
it working - and probably visiting the service. If your pathologist
thinks you can process 100% of a one litre specimen, he isn't going to
be of much help to you in getting a procedure working.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN