Management of cytologic material, preanalytic procedures and biobanking in lymph node cytopathology.

The range of pathologies that lymph node (LN) fine needle cytology (FNC) may encounter is extremely wide and ancillary techniques, in addition to traditional smears, are generally required to reach reliable cytologic diagnoses. Storing part of the cytologic material may be useful or necessary for molecular testing. The main difficulties concern the generally small size of the sample and the different methods of acquisition of LN-FNC. Therefore, the preanalytic phase is extremely important for LN-FNC. This article outlines the management of LN-FNC material, vials, technical devices (e.g.: additional smears, cytospin slides, LBC slides, cards, resins, etc.) and main ancillary techniques to assess their optimal application, taking into account the different diagnostic needs and cell storage.