• Cytopathology
• endocrine pathology
• evidence based pathology
• head and neck cancer
• histopathology
• breast pathology
• breast cancer
• prostate

Fine needle aspiration (FNA) cytology is a useful, inexpensive and rapid method for diagnostic evaluation of a wide spectrum of pathological lesions.1 ,2 However, disadvantages include bloody yields that obscure cell morphology and the relative difficulty of applying adjunctive immunohistochemical and molecular studies when the aspirated material is entirely submitted as smears.3 ,4

In many institutions, initial handling of bloody aspirates, which can be voluminous, entails expressing the specimen into preservative or fixative liquid media. Later recovery of cellular particles is achieved by either clotting or centrifugation.5 This technique of attempting to optimise the yield of material from such specimens has not been universally satisfactory, and may pose challenges in cytological interpretation as well as hamper ready application of immunohistochemistry or molecular studies.

We recently discovered a simple and effective alternative method for the initial handling of a large volume of blood or bloody yields from the standard FNA procedure that results in tissue particle and cell rich specimens, …