Abstract:
This study was conducted to assess utility of the agarose cell block technique based
on specimen adequacy and diagnostic accuracy. 63 study subjects were selected for
this study, among them 12(19%) were males and 51(81%) were females with age
range between 4-77 years and the mean age was 36.97 ± 1.9. One cell block section
and one smear were made from each case, the study cases were divided into 4 groups
according to the type of specimens including thyroid 23 (36.5%) followed by breast
15(23.8%), lymph nodes 6 (9.5%) and soft tissue masses 9 (14.28) and others
including three (4.76 %) effusions (Two Ascetic fluids and One pleural fluid), and
7(11.11%) urine samples. The soft tissue masses included face, lipoma, post auricular
swelling, and arm, back, right mandible, foot, ankle, neck, and abdominal masses.
When comparing the final diagnosis of cell block sections and cytological smears
according to the background, cellularity and the nuclear and cytoplasm preservation,
21(33.3%)of samples were better by cell block technique, 27(42.9%) showed same
results in both cellblock technique and smearing technique and 15(23.8%) were found
to be less using cell block technique. It is recommended that different cellblock sectio
ns be used for, histochemical, immunohistochemical (IHC), and Immunocytochemical
(ICC) investigations in diagnostic cytology laboratories. Molecular studies such as,
fluorescent /chromogenic in-situ hybridization (FISH/CISH) and in-situ PCR, could
also be applied on cell block sections.
