Exfoliative cytology

Grove, G.L. Exfoliative cytological procedures as a nonintrusive method for dermatogerontological studies. J. Invest. Dermatol. 1979, 73 67-9. 

Goldschmidt, H. and Kligman, A.M., 1967, Exfoliative cytology of human homy layer, methods of cell removal and microscopic techniques. Arch. Dermatol, 96, 572. 

For determination of the estrous cycle, vaginal smears were collected 54-60 days postpartum. Smears were fixed in acetone for 10 min at room temperature and then subjected to H E staining. The estrous cycle averages 4 to 5 days. The estrus phase may last from 9 to 15 hours. The exfoliated cytology is characterized by marked squamification and comification of the cells and the disappearance of leukocytes. During the latter part of estrus, these cells appear to... 

Richardson H, Koss L, Simon T. An evaluation of the concomitant use of cytologi-cal and histocytological techniques in the recognition of cancer in exfoliated material from various sources. Cancer 1955 8 948-950. 

Ma, Q., et al., GSTP1 A1578G (Ilel05Val) polymorphism in benzidine-exposed workers an association with cytological grading of exfoliated urothelial cells, Pharmacogenetics, 13, 409, 2003. 

Cytology, that is, the visual inspection of exfoliated cells, is most commonly carried out for smears of cells, which are deposited ( smeared ) directly from brushes, spatulas or other exfoliation devices onto microscope slides. Such smears are unsuitable for spectral analysis, since they contain clumps of cells, cellular debris, erythrocytes and other contamination. However, better methods of cell slide preparations have been introduced into cytology, among them the ThinPrep methods developed by Cytyc, Inc. (see ref. 7), and spin centrifugation deposition techniques. These methods are very good for real exfoliated cell samples,7 since they permit the purification of the cell exfoliate, enrichment in the cells desired for analysis and produce good monolayers for visual cell inspection. 

In order to gain more insight into FTIR cervical pathology, a detailed investigation into the spectral cytology of the various cell types that comprise the cervical transformation zone, which surrounds squamous epithelium and glandular endothelium, was deemed necessary so that the origin of the major spectral types observed in cervical exfoliates and the spectral characteristics of abnormality could be understood. 

NC, USA) and Cytyc (Marlboro, MA, USA). When several different spectral cytology fixatives were tested, the fixation of individual exfoliated cells was shown to cause relatively small spectral changes, in contrast to earlier reports where there was a heavy dependence on fixation [14]. (These results are presented in Section 5.3.1.) As the present cytology procedures involved use of the SurePath method, a SurePath preservative fiuid was used as fixative this was an aqueous solution containing ca. 25% ethanol and a few percent of isopropanol and methanol. 

This section contains spectral results collected from entire individual cells, with the specific aim of differentiating between cell types that occur in samples of cells. The long-range goal of these studies has been the development of a completely automatic method to perform spectral cytology-that is, to analyze a sample of exfoliated cells (e.g., cervical cells obtained during the Pap cervical cancer screening procedure) for the presence of abnormal cells. 

Presant and Bearman (1981) reported preliminary findings of a randomized trial that used isotretinoin either alone or in combination with busulfan for the treatment of patients with chronic phase chronic myelocytic leukemia. No differences have been noted in the time to development of blastic transformation in either group. The addition of the retinoid did not increase the acute toxicity of busulfan. Saccomanno et al. (1982) administered isotretinoin in 26 patients who exhibited varying degrees of cytologic atypia in exfoliated cells obtained from... 

Figure 5.13 shows the results of PCA analysis of cells exfoliated from normal patients and patients diagnosed with LSIL/HSIL [50]. Here, the results of the oral cytology are reproduced in that most of the cells from patients with dysplasia exhibit spectral abnormalities, although the cell morphology is normal (see cell images in Figure 5.13). Even more surprising is the fact that the cells from a patient with a prior diagnosis of HSIL, and subsequent treatment, still exhibit abnormal spectral patterns and cluster with the abnormal spectra.

Aside from the fixation studies, which were carried out for both exfoliated and cultured cells, the majority of the work presented in the sections above has dealt with exfoliated cells that is, it reported a truly new form of cytology, namely SCP. To the best of our knowledge, work on exfoliated cells at the cell-by-cell level is now being carried out exclusively at the LSpD, and the size of the data sets at the LSpD far exceeds all previously collected data sets combined [35,44]. At the time of writing this summary, it appears that the SCP has matured to a level that allows for detection of cellular abnormalities, such as dysplasia, cancer, and viral infection in exfoliated cells and, thus, is poised to be applied to areas where classical cytology has very poor performance, in many cases below 50% accuracy. 

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