Saha Sadeghi, MD

Wayne Muller, MD

Kimberly Schlack, MD

A small drop of the aspirated material is carefully expressed onto the glass slide (Labeled side up). Several slides are usually prepared at one time in this fashion.

NOTE: If a drop cannot be expressed, the syringe needle may be detached and the plunger withdrawn to fill the syringe with a small amount of air and the needle reattached to the syringe.
(Careful! Use single-hand technique only.) The specimen should then be more easily expressed.

Once the smear is achieved, the original glass slide should be IMMEDIATELY placed in the alcohol fixative (have Coplin jar containing 95% alcohol ready). The remaining slides are smeared one at a time and placed in the alcohol fixative.

NOTE: If air-dried smears are desired, no fixative is required. These are sometimes helpful in lesions involving the thyroid gland, salivary glands, and lymph nodes.
The slides should also be labeled "air-dried."

The needle should then be rinsed with Saccomanno fixative for later cytospin or cell block preparations. This is done by drawing some fluid into the syringe and then expressing the entire contents into the vial.

NOTE: All slides and specimen containers must be labeled with the patient name and sent with a completed requisition form.

If enough material is available, a few air dried smears may also be prepared. These are sometimes helpful in lesions involving the thyroid gland, salivary gland and lymph nodes. The slides should be labeled "Air Dried".