Shock-scattering micro-histotripsy-aided fine needle aspiration for enhanced biomarker profiling and cytopathology

Core needle biopsy is the gold standard procedure for sampling tissues for pathology-based diagnostics. However, it produces significant tissue damage and may lead to undue pain and risk of complications such as infections. Alternatives such as fine needle aspiration and liquid biopsy have not yet achieved the same widespread utility owing to the limited abundance of cells and relevant biomarkers in extracted samples. Here we introduce a shock-scattering micro-histotripsy-aided fine needle aspiration technology which uses cavitation to liquefy nano-liter to micro-liter volumes to produce tissue homogenates with both intact and lysed cells. It permits not only conventional cytopathology with high success but sufficient high-quality tissue homogenates to enable reliable ancillary testing such as genetic biomarker profiling and even whole genome sequencing with improved quality compared to formalin-fixed samples. Our approach represents an advance in tissue diagnostics with orders of magnitude less damage than core-needle biopsy procedures.