Cell Sample Preparation for Clinical Cytopathology: Current Status and Future Development

Antigen Retrieval Immunohistochemistry

“…Therefore, this technique is highly recommended as the first choice for ICC analysis whenever enough cell samples are available (Fetsch and Abati 2001;Miller and Kubier 2002;DeLellis and Hoda 2006;Liu H et al 2007;Shin et al 2007). In cases where insufficient material is available for a cell block, the "Cytoscrape" method has been proposed, characterized by scraping off darkly stained tissue fragments from smeared slides (Verbeek et al 1996;Kulkarni et al 2000;Shi and Wasserman 2010).…”

“…Cell block and cell transfer techniques are being used increasingly in the quest for improved standardization and wider application of ICC in cytopathology (Shi and Wasserman 2010). For the purpose of ICC, FFPE cell blocks are considered the most ideal samples.…”

Self‐clotting method improves cell block preparation

“…Although we used the plasma‐thrombin method for cell block preparation in the current study, we believe that the SCM also can be equally effective with the agarose gel method. Once the air‐dried blood clot is formed, formalin fixation can be performed . After disposing the formalin, liquefied agarose gel is added in, mixed well, and cooled down to solidify the sample for further cell block preparation.…”

“…Traditionally, the cell block is prepared by collecting needle rinses from an FNA specimen and then concentrating the solution by centrifugation to form a cell pellet. The cell pellet then is hardened using plasma‐thrombin or agarose gel, transferred to a histology cassette, fixed in 10% buffered formalin, and further processed into a paraffin block . Although this method is successful in many cases, the efficiency of cellular recovery is not always optimal, ranging from 60% to 90% .…”

“…Scraping the clot with a blade from a glass slide also has been shown to facilitate cell block preparation . Miller et al even suggested bringing 2 small dropper bottles containing thrombin and plasma separately to the bedside when performing FNA.…”