Comparable cytological features between cells processed as either wet mount or conventional cytospins

Objective: Microfluidics represents a novel approach for the processing of pathological biopsy specimens. It represents an enabling platform between traditional morphology-driven pathology diagnostics and future sequencing technologies. Microfluidics requires the dissociation of cells from tissue, but the evaluation of these cells still lies within the domain of pathology, specifically cytopathology. The dissociated cells, however, require supravital staining and examination under wet mount conditions as part of their processing in a microfluidic platform. These conditions are vastly different from current approaches for cytopathological specimen preparation. No studies to date have compared the cytological characteristics of cells between these two different conditions. Methods: Slivers of different types of unfixed tissue were procured and the cells were dissociated. The cells were recovered and separated for processing either by staining with a supravital dye and examination under wet mount conditions or by conventional preparatory methods and staining by the Papanicolaou method. Results: Obvious differences existed in the tinctorial hue between similar cells stained by the two different methods; however, there were no significant differences in the features between the matched cells. Some cells in the wet mount preparations existed in three-dimensional balls, reducing the quality of the images relative to cells flattened to the slide by the cytospin method. Conclusions: Cells stained with a supravital stain and examined in a wet mount environment appear to be cytologically similar to cells prepared by conventional methods. Long-established criteria for the evaluation of cells prepared by established protocols can therefore be extended and applied to cells viewed within a microfluidic platform.