Best Practice for Making Cytologic Preparations

Everyone makes cytologic preparations a little bit different, says Anne Barger, DVM, MS, DACVP, clinical professor in pathobiology at University of Illinois.

She says the preferred technique is spraying the material on a slide, taking another slide, and then gently pressing that slide into the material while spreading it. One issue Dr. Barger sometimes encounters with cytologic preparations is that a sample is aspirated, sprayed on the slide, and then not spread.