A Novel Approach to Cell Blockistry - Comparison of Formalin Fixed Paraffin Embedded Method with Plasma Thrombin Method

Introduction: Cell-blocks are prepared from cytologic fluid samples, which include concentration of samples followed by routine histopathology processing. There are different methods of cell-block preparation in various laboratories. This study compares the plasma thrombin method and the Formalin-based method, where the samples are evaluated for overall cellularity, clarity, and recovery of cells. Material and Methods: 80 samples of various body fluid samples were included for this study, in which after routine conventional smear preparation, the remaining fluid was divided equally and cell-blocks prepared using both Formalin based and Plasma thrombin methods, then slides were scored for cellularity, clarity and recovery of cell clusters and statistically analyzed using Chi-square test. Results: Statistically significant differences between the two groups were seen in the distribution of scores for cellularity, recovery of cells, and total scores (p<0.05), where the formalin-based method had higher scores compared to the plasma thrombin method. However, scores for clarity were similar (p>0.05). Conclusion: Both formalin-based and plasma-thrombin methods of cell-block preparation aid in giving good cellular details. The formalin-based approach, which is a simple and cost-effective method, outperformed the plasma-thrombin method with significant differences when evaluated for cellularity and recovery of cells, whereas the clarity is similar for both methods.