For the blood tube submission– Do you request that on every patient, even if they don't have a leukemic component? And what type of blood tube do you request we send the sample in?

We require at least 2 mL of whole blood in an EDTA-treated tube.

Other Questions

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I have a patient with likely lymphoma/leukemia. For a blood sample, can I just submit an EDTA blood tube or do I still use the ImpriMed tubes (and if so, how many tubes and is an additional EDTA blood tube still needed with that)?

If the patient is suspected of leukemia, blood collected in the EDTA tube should be fine. If it is lymphoma, we might need FNA from the affected organ/lymph node. We can suggest FNA in ImpriMed media tube (1) and 2ml of blood sample in an EDTA tube.

Is there any reason to believe that submitting another sample to you would provide any additional information or possible changes in treatment protocols now that we are almost 4 months into the treatment plan?

We would suggest you submit another FNA and blood samples to us WHEN the patient's lymphoma relapses. Relapse of lymphoma means that the cancer develops a resistance to certain chemo drugs in use. When this happens, the relapsed cancer cells are usually different from the ones investigated in the naive status, which led to different drug response predictions to the tested drugs. Therefore, it would be better to get new tumor samples and find out what are the new preferred drugs and which of the used drugs still remain effective or became resistant for the relapsed lymphoma. However, the best scenario is to maintain clinical remission for as long a period of time so that you don’t have to order another service from us! If a second service is needed, we offer a 50% discount for returning patients.

What does flow cytometry tell me about my patient’s specimen?

ImpriMed’s flow cytometry report provides comprehensive information about the specimen’s immunophenotype. B-cell and T-cell immunophenotypes are useful in determining lymphoma/leukemia subtype and prognosis. In addition, our panel of ten antigens can also be used in the diagnosis of T-zonal lymphoma, acute leukemia, and other diseases. Antigens levels reported are: CD21, CD79a, CD3, CD4, CD8, CD5, CD45, CD34, CD14, and MHC class II. For more information, see: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26953614/

We have a case coming in today we would really like to submit but don’t have transport media tubes; is there any other method we could do in order to submit a sample, such as aspirating and placing it in tube with serum?

Please use serum and saline that you would normally do when you send to other reference laboratories.

When will I be billed? Are we billed at the same time as placing the order?

Invoices will be sent about 30 days after the service is ordered. We send the invoice to the email (billing or accounts payable) we have on file for the clinic at the start of the month for any services provided the month prior.