Flow cytometry for non-heme malignancies

[vinnyboy]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Does anybody know of any efforts to flow solid tumors (carcinomas, sarcomas etc). Is it possible.

Is there any flow lab which offers flow panels for non heme malignancies.

Any help much appreciated.

 

[Granular]

To dissociate a solid tumor to prepare it for flow, you may need to enzymatically digest the tissue, which tends to ruin the surface markers you are interested in detecting. That being said, people are trying to do all kinds of stuff. Check out the literature on "circulating tumor cells," "laser scanning cytometry," and "image capable flow cytometers," or words to that effect. As far as I know, nothing has yet been broadly adapted clinically, but I haven't totally kept up with these areas.

 

[lipomas]

We flowed a small cell carcinoma once. It wasn't immunostaining like anything, and they repeated the biopsy for flow - large population of CD45 negative cells were positive for 56. I don't really know of many other tumors for which it is possible. Small cell is pretty disohesive anyway.

Bear in mind there is a big difference between research applications for flow (which claim all kinds of fantastic things) and practical application.

For tumors, you are probably better off doind molecular stuff.

 

[caffeinegirl]

Sometimes if a "small blue cell neoplasm" gets sent for flow from the frozen lab, a keratin stain on flow could be done (especially if it was negative for CD45 and the other stains in the first tube). But the yield of carcinomas is so low, for the reasons that have already been stated.

 

[PresterJohn]

If we see a cutaneous blue cell tumor on frozen, we'll include cytokeratin in our screening panel to look for Merkel cell. I think that's mainly because our TAT on flow (hours) is faster than IHC (up to a day and a half, if the case comes in right after the IHC cutoff). We do the rest of the workup/confirmation by IHC. That's probably the only time we use the anti-ck fluorochrome.