What does PARR tell me about my patient’s specimen?

PARR, which stands for PCR for Antigen Receptor Rearrangements, is used to discriminate between lymphoma/leukemia and reactive/inflammatory conditions when cytology is equivocal. Our canine PARR assay detects the expansion of B-cell cancer clones by amplifying the VJ region of the immunoglobulin heavy chain gene (IgH) and detects the expansion of T-cell cancer clones by amplifying a region in the T-cell receptor gamma chain gene.

Other Questions

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What type of sample is needed – just aspirates and a typical flow sample?

We need about 10 million cancer cells to run the full chemosensitivity panel so we ask that you conduct an aggressive woodpecker style FNA, poking as many nodes as possible and putting the cells into our proprietary media tubes (ensures we receive live cells), then of course we need a whole blood sample (2mL).

Can the testing be performed on dogs that are currently on therapy?

Current therapy will not affect our AI predictions or immunoprofile results. However, reduction of tumor size caused by therapy may increase the likelihood of service failure due to insufficient cells. In the event of service failure, you will not be billed.

Are patients on drug treatments when we look at the progression-free survival graph?

Yes, probably the patient would be taking some form of drug treatment when we look at the progression-free survival graph. Basically, the patients were not treatment free at the time.

What does flow cytometry tell me about my patient’s specimen?

ImpriMed’s flow cytometry report provides comprehensive information about the specimen’s immunophenotype. B-cell and T-cell immunophenotypes are useful in determining lymphoma/leukemia subtype and prognosis. In addition, our panel of ten antigens can also be used in the diagnosis of T-zonal lymphoma, acute leukemia, and other diseases. Antigens levels reported are: CD21, CD79a, CD3, CD4, CD8, CD5, CD45, CD34, CD14, and MHC class II. For more information, see: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26953614/

Is it wise to eliminate a certain chemotherapy drug based on the test results or should there be other factors that need to be considered in this decision?

We do not recommend using ImpriMed's predictions to rule out treatment options. The company's artificial intelligence is optimized to give high positive predictive value to help you find drugs with the highest likelihood of producing positive clinical outcomes. For the bests results, our predictions should be used in conjunction with expert knowledge from a skilled oncologist.