How do I collect an FNA sample?

ImpriMed steps for FNA collection

  1. Disinfect the skin with alcohol (70%) at the planned needle puncture site.
  2. Insert a 20-gauge needle (without syringe) into an enlarged lymph node and perform 15 - 20 aspirations using an aggressive “woodpecker style” technique.  Stop aspirating when the aspirate appears in the hub of the needle.
  3. Attach the needle to a 5 - 10 mL syringe (with at least 1 ml of air). Tilt the collection tube upside down and inject the aspirated material directly into the medium.
  4. Allow a small amount of fluid (~1/4 mL) to flush back into the needle, then gently reinject into a fluid medium to flush out the needle.
  5. Repeat the procedure multiple times to ensure all the aspirate is transferred into the media tube.  

We need at least 10 million cells to conduct the drug response predictions, so if you need to aspirate from other affected nodes please do so. There are no additional costs for additional nodes or tubes. Typically, 2 FNA tubes of adequate cellularity are required to reach 10 million cells.  

Important Note:

If a blood vessel was lacerated during the procedure and the collection tube becomes significantly bloody, please select a different biopsy site and repeat the procedure.  Store any FNA tubes in the fridge immediately after the biopsy. DO NOT freeze samples or the transport media.We also accept fresh lymph node tissue and spleen samples (within 24 hours of collection).

Other Questions

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Can the test be used on cats and other animals?

At this time, we only offer commercial services to canine lymphoma patients. However, we are conducting research into feline lymphoma so if you would like to submit a sample please sign up here if you are interested in feline services.

Is there any reason to believe that submitting another sample to you would provide any additional information or possible changes in treatment protocols now that we are almost 4 months into the treatment plan?

We would suggest you submit another FNA and blood samples to us WHEN the patient's lymphoma relapses. Relapse of lymphoma means that the cancer develops a resistance to certain chemo drugs in use. When this happens, the relapsed cancer cells are usually different from the ones investigated in the naive status, which led to different drug response predictions to the tested drugs. Therefore, it would be better to get new tumor samples and find out what are the new preferred drugs and which of the used drugs still remain effective or became resistant for the relapsed lymphoma. However, the best scenario is to maintain clinical remission for as long a period of time so that you don’t have to order another service from us! If a second service is needed, we offer a 50% discount for returning patients.

What services does ImpriMed offer?

ImpriMed offers personalized medicine services to help you diagnose and treat canine lymphoma or leukemia. (Click to read more)

For patients who already have flow cytometry, can you just run the drug sensitivity profile?

No, we cannot run a drug sensitivity-only service. Please understand our AI-based drug response prediction models require flow cytometry and PARR parameters generated from our own instrumental setting. Even if the patient already has flow cytometry results from another laboratory, we need to run flow and PARR again anyway.

How much research do you have to support your results?

All of our products are thoroughly validated in-house using clinical outcomes data and we have published multiple peer-reviewed papers demonstrating the efficacy of our predictions (Veterinary Sciences and Veterinary and Comparative Oncology). We have run over 12,000 tests on hematopoietic cells, and over 4,000 canine patients that have benefited from our services. We believe we have more data on canine lymphoma than any other company in the world.