Archival Fine-Needle Aspiration Cytopathology (FNAC) Samples Untapped Resource for Clinical Molecular Profiling

Microarray technologies provide high resolution maps of chromosome imbalances and epigenomic aberrations in the cancer cell genome Such assays are often sensitive to sample DNA integrity, voiding the utility of many archival pathology specimens and necessitating the special handling of prospective clinical specimens We have identified the remarkable preservation of higher molecular weight DNA m archival fine needle aspiration cytopathology specimens from patients greater than 10 years of age We further demonstrate the outstanding technical performance of 57 fine needle aspiration cytopathology samples for aberration detection on high resolution comparative genomic hybridization array, DNA methylation, and single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping platforms Forty four of 46 malignant aspirates in this study manifested unequivocal genomic aberrations Importantly, matched Papanicolaou and Diff Quik fine needle aspiration cytopathology samples showed critical differences in DNA preservation and DNA integrity Overall, this study identifies a largely untapped reserve of human pathology specimens for molecular profiling studies, with ramifications for the prospective collection of clinical biospecimens (J Mol Diagn 2010, 12, 739-745, DOI 10.2353/jmoldx.2010.090238)