Educational Objectives:
1) To present an overview of the morphologic spectrum of cytologic changes present in a variety of benign and malignant entities involving the urinary tract
2) To introduce a practical approach for when to order ancilliary studies, (FISH or DNA ploidy) their relative value, and discuss cut-off levels of different chromosomal abnormalites for positive and negative specimens
3) At the end of the session, participants should have a greater comfort level in differentiating benign from malignant conditions, be aware of potential pitfalls in the diagnosis of urinary cytology and be able to interpret and integrate results of FISH and/or DNA image analysis testing into the final pathology diagnosis


Urinary tract cytology in a patient population at high risk for primary or recurrent urothelial carcinoma is frequently requested. However in this setting, due to therapy effects such as following BCG therapy, there may be multiple challenges in arriving at an accurate diagnosis. Moreover, there are many cases where the addition of ancilliary studies, may help the cytologist arrive at the correct diagnosis.


A variety of benign and malignant urinary tract specimens encompassing urothelial carcinoma (UC), both low and high grade, diagnosis of UC post- BCG therapy and detection of UC occurring in the upper urinary tract, or in conduit urine post-cystectomy, lithiasis and Polyoma Viral cytopathic effect will be presented. in addition, cases will be accompanied by images of DNA ploidy and UroVysion FISH assays, which may aid in achieving a final diagnosis.

Educational Objectives:
1) Learn the cellular patterns of diseases involving the CNS, in both CSF and tumor aspirate samples
2) Distinguish among the "small" cells commonly found in the CNS
3) Compare the work-up of primary versus secondary malignancies of the CNS
4) Emphasize the role of ancillary studies in these samples


A decision tree approach considers the patient's clinical history including age and location of suspected lesion, plus the appearance of the cytologic sample. After a brief lecture describing this approach, the registrants will be guided through a variety of examples using this pragmatic approach, as well as emphasizing the use of ancillary studies to confirm morphologic impressions.