Get access to our clinical podcast series with our ⁠30% off IVECCS Special.⁠

I have a love-hate relationship with in-house pleural effusion analysis. Love, because it’s really quite interesting, and the results can be tremendously useful for your very sick effusion patient. Hate because it can be REALLY challenging!

But not anymore... This episode highlights some key takeaways from a very informative IVECCS session on how to get maximum information from your in-house effusion analysis to help you make quick and logical treatment decisions, including a real McGyver hack for doing advanced diagnostics on the cheap.

⁠Dr Holly Brown⁠ is a board certified clinical pathologist who works in a bustling general, referral, and emergency practice where she sees a wide variety of diagnostic submissions and enjoys playing an important role at the interface of diagnostics and patient care. Dr. Brown has always been passionate about delivering continuing education to doctors and technicians around maximizing laboratory testing, and she serves an important role as Chief Veterinary Educator for Antech Diagnostics. 

⁠Jessica Wilson-Hess⁠ is a certified veterinary technician and veterinary technician specialist in small animal internal medicine who nerds out on all things clinical pathology, including teaching other techs and nurses how to get really good at it.

Sign up for our ⁠free weekly newsletter⁠ to hear about my favourite 3 lessons I learnt in that week from making the podcasts.

Get case support from our team at specialists in our ⁠⁠Specialist Support Space⁠⁠.

Topics and Time Stamps

02:18 Importance of In-House Analysis

02:48 Understanding Pleural Effusion in Cats and Dogs

05:20 Classifying Effusions: Transudate, Exudate, and More

09:59 Sample Handling and Common Mistakes12:09 Using Analyzers for Fluid Analysis

17:04 Cytology and Concentration Techniques

24:24 Understanding Centrifugation in Cytology

25:33 In-House CSF Analysis Techniques

26:59 DIY Cyto-centrifuge Using a Salad Spinner!

30:43 Manual Cell Counting Methods

33:14 Chemistry and Effusion Analysis

38:15 Identifying Neoplastic Cells

41:46 Empowering Technicians in Veterinary Practice