Ultrafast Papanicolaou stain is not limited to rapid assessments: application to permanent fine-needle aspiration smears.

Ultrafast Papanicolaou (Pap) stain, a 90-second preparation originally designed for the immediate assessment of fine-needle aspiration (FNA) smears (Yang and Alvarez, Acta Cytol 1995;39:55-60), can also be adapted for permanent FNA smears. It involves the addition of three simple steps prior to the conventional Pap procedure: the first step is to make the cells appear larger, thus increasing the resolution for analysis of cellular details; the second step is to hemolyse the background blood, thus unmasking tumor cells; and the third step is to bring out the vibrant colors in the cells and the nucleoli, which stain red.