The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has issued draft Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on 'Immunophenotyping of Hematolymphoid Neoplasms'.

In 2008, ICMR had constituted a task force to address issues related to flow cytometry including indications of immunophenotyping, sample collection,  transportation, processing, acquiring, analysis and  reporting. Also the task force aims to provide guidelines for panel selection, choice of reagents, quality control and safety issues in a flow cytometry laboratory. The taskforce committee included laboratory and medical experts from different parts of the country practicing clinical flow cytometry routinely with an emphasis on lymphoma and leukemia immunophenotyping.

These documents have been written in collaboration with various cytometrists (pathologists and oncologists) from across India, and are based primarily on their expert opinion and published  literature. It should be recognized that these documents/SOPs/guidelines are based on information that is available at the present time, and will change with advances in the technology and knowledge. All findings should be interpreted in the context of clinical, morphological and various ancillary techniques, whenever possible.

This is first successful attempt to define broad guidelines suitable for the initial evaluation of hematolymphoid neoplasm. With goal to provide good  laboratory practices, ICMR proposes to have similar documents for cytogenetics and molecular diagnostics in the hematolymphoid neoplasms.

WHO in 2008 has classified hematolymphoid neoplasms based on clinical, morphological, immunological (immunohistochemistry and flow cytometric immunophenotyping), cytogenetic and molecular evaluation of various tissues including peripheral blood, bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen and extranodal lymphoid tissues. These ancillary techniques are mandatory for the diagnosis, prognosis and management of hematolymphoid neoplasms that constitute approximately 8 per cent of all tumours.

Immunophenotyping by flow cytometry is standard practice in the diagnosis, classification and monitoring of patients with hematolymphoid neoplasm. Lack of uniformity and considerable variability continues to exist in various methodologies used for sample evaluation and the reporting format.

ICMR has invited comments and suggestions from stakeholders on this draft document before February 19, 2015.