Cytogenetics
US LABS customers nationwide have the ability to access high-quality, state-of-the-art diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic genetic testing such as cancer cytogenetics, FISH, and molecular genetic analyses. The US LABS core cancer diagnostics services allow clinicians to move rapidly into the arena of genetic medicine. Here, laboratory results are not only relevant to answering diagnostic questions but also predictivequestions related to assessing how a patient will respond to specific therapies.
Clinical cytogenetics is the discipline of genetics devoted to the study of chromosomes and the identifiable genetic changes that may occur on a microscopic level in both hereditary and somatic tissue. It is the study of chromosome structure and its behavior in pathologic and disease state conditions.
Dividing cells are necessary for analysis of chromosomes. Chromosomes can be studied from tissues cells that have undergone spontaneous division or cells that have been stimulated to divide. Cellular material for cytogenetic studies may be found in a variety of tissue types, inclusive of fibroblasts, chorionic villi, placenta, amniotic fluid, bone marrow, lymph node, and peripheral blood.
Cellular material is first cultured in media and arrested in mitosis by a chemical agent. Then cells are processed, fixed, and dropped onto slides to obtain spreads of the chromosomes from the cells in mitosis (metaphase cells). Essential to clinical cytogenetics is the banding of chromosomes, which enables their identification and the subsequent analysis of structural and numerical changes by trained certified technologists.
Cancer cytogenetics is a subdiscipline of cytogenetics devoted to the study of chromosomal changes in neoplastic tissues. The US LABS laboratory service provides cancer cytogenetic analysis on specimens primarily from patients with leukemia or lymphoma. As a part of our service the cancer cytogenetic program offers contextual oncology analysis and reporting. The program provides results with interpretations written in correlation with concurrent testing and supporting pathological or patient data supplied.
