An evaluation of ThinPrep UroCyte filters for the preparation of slides for fluorescence in situ hybridization

The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of ThinPrep® UroCyte™ filters, which were designed specifically for the preparation of slides for fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of urine specimens. One hundred urine specimens were evenly split, and one portion was utilized to prepare a slide with the UroCyte filter method and the other portion was used to prepare a slide with a manual dropping method. All 17 of the 100 specimens identified as positive by the manual method were also identified as positive with the UroCyte method. No significant differences were noted in the percentage of chromosomally abnormal cells (P = 0.227), cellularity (P = 0.857), signal quality (P = 0.816), and DAPI counterstain quality (P = 0.369) between the two methodologies. The average time taken to prepare a batch of 10 slides using the UroCyte method, and that using manual method was 103 min (10.3 min/case) and 194 min (19.4 min/case), respectively. This study suggests that the UroCyte filter method of preparing slides for FISH analysis reduces the time required to prepare these slides with overall results that are similar to the currently utilized manual dropping method. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2006;34:479–484. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.