Liquid-based cytology preparations

These techniques are used for liquid samples and use a centrifugation process to concentrate cells and deposit them on a slide. They typically produce slides with a circular area containing the cells. There are several common methods available such as Cytospin, ThinPrep (used for cervical and non-cervical cytology) and SurePath (cervical cytology).

Direct spread/smear

Material from the cytology sample is deposited directly onto a slide and smeared across the slide to distribute the cells. These preparations can be air-dried or wet fixed.

Cell block

Cells within a liquid sample are concentrated, embedded in agar and the agar block is sectioned to make slides in a similar way to a paraffin block.