All-in-one: The dream and reality of molecular cytopathology testing on routine lung cancer smears

If cytopathologists are used to dedicating 1 or more fine-needle aspiration passes to prepare a tumor-representative cell block, the testing laboratory may strongly rely on anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), ROS proto-oncogene 1, receptor tyrosine kinase (ROS1), and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) immunocytochemistry assays. Conversely, when sample procurement and diagnostic interpretation are based primarily on smeared material, cytopathologists should promote, in conjunction with the molecular team, ALK and ROS1 RNA-based testing approaches on smears, saving the cell block only for PD-L1 staining. See also pages 000-000.

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