Fine Needle Aspirate and Cytology
Fine needle aspirates (aka needle biopsy) is typically used to obtained cell samples from skin masses. A needle is used to obtain the sample. The sample is then placed on a glass slide, stained and evaluated under a microscope. While we evaluate many of these samples ourselves, we will sometimes have a board-certified veterinary clinical pathologist evaluate the sample(s). This sample allows for evaluation of a small number of cells when compared to skin biopsies which has a larger number of cells as well as tissue patterns.