| Needle gauge |
Most commonly 25- or 27-gauge |
| Technique |
Suction or capillary (non-aspiration) |
| Slide preparation |
Direct smears |
| • Alcohol-fixed Papanicolaou stain |
| • Romanovsky-type stain (e.g., Diff-Quik) |
| Liquid-based |
| • ThinPrep |
| • SurePath |
| Molecular testing collection methods |
Fresh specimen into a nucleic acid preservative |
| Residual material collected for liquid-based preparation |
| Cellular material scraped from direct smears |
| On-site evaluation |
Routine or requested by procedure operator |
| Performed by cytopathologist or cytotechnologist |
