Performance Characteristics of Cerebrospinal Fluid Cytology: An Analysis of Responses From the College of American Pathologists Nongynecologic Cytopathology Education Program

Concordance for a benign case was defined as a benign participant interpretation. Because CSF slides containing only atypical cells are excluded from the program following committee consensus review, the "atypical" general diagnostic category is not provided as an interpretation option in the program. [...]specimens suspected of fungal infection should receive additional microbiological analysis to confirm the diagnosis unless classic features or a large number of diagnostic yeast forms are present in the specimen. [...]recent ancillary technology advances, including flow cytometry, have been increasingly used in the past 10 to 15 years.9,10 In many ways, flow cytometry has distinct advantages,10 and if there is knowledge of the previous hematopoietic malignancy, a limited panel can be tailored to the patient's previous CD markers. [...]our study illustrates the challenges in achieving an accurate diagnosis from CSF cytology samples, in particular for nonhematopoietic small blue round cell tumors and for normal and inflammatory CSF samples.