CYTOLOGY OF SEROUS EFFUSIONS - COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF 2 SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT PREPARATIVE METHODS

Abstract

A prospective study of 100 serous effusions was made by 2 slightly different techniques of smearing cells from the centrifuged sediment onto glass slides. Those made with the cotton swab had greater cell concentration and better cell morphology than matching slides prepared by the pipette-hematologic 2 slide technique. Exclusive use of the cotton swab is recommended in making these preparations. On follow-up, in this series of 72 cancer patients, there was a false positive rate of zero percent, and a false negative rate of 29%.