Send all samples overnight with a cold pack for delivery Monday through Friday. Blood and bone marrow can usually be received Saturday (10 am delivery) and will be viable on Monday, but aspirates will not. You will not be charged for the viability test is the sample is dead, but shipping charges will still apply. Do not freeze samples!
Blood and Bone Marrow
EDTA tube containing at least 500 ul of sample.
Blood samples need to have current (within 2 days) CBC. You can either include a copy of your CBC results, or we can carry out the CBC through CSU. To submit CBC to CSU, please include a second EDTA and fresh blood smear (if a second EDTA tube is impossible to obtain we can split a single tube – it is more important to have a properly filled tube for an accurate CBC).
Lymph node, mediastinal and other organ aspirates
Place 1 ml of saline (.9%, LRS, Norm R) in a red topped tube (plain tube, no additives, no serum separator).
Drawing up 0.9mls of saline
Add 0.1 ml of serum from the patient, or another animal of the same species, to the saline in the red topped tube.
Drawing a 0.1 ml serum from a spun blood sample
Aspirate using suction.
Aspirating a node.
Squirt contents into the red topped tube. Rinse syringe and needle with saline. Repeat aspiration and rinsing twice if possible.
Rinsing the syringe with saline
Cavity Fluid
If possible send one tube each EDTA and red top tube containing 400ul or more of fluid. Send EDTA if only enough for one tube. Add a few drops of serum if the total protein is less than 4 mg/dl.
Questions?
Call us at 970-491-1170