abstract
- Cell culture techniques hold great importance for the development of molecular biology. However, when used to study oncology, most of the samples come from surgical specimens. Endoscopy is a interesting alternative to get samples for culture. We studied a protocol to allow the control of infectious contamination potentially related to endoscopy, which could preclude it as a method to obtain cells for culture. Esophageal biopsies from 30 patients were taken through upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, using a previously flamed forceps, and were cultivated with and without amphotericin. Our results showed contamination in 3.3% of the wells without the antifungal and in 0.8% of those with it. Regarding the 30 cases studied, the described protocol was able to provide samples free of contamination in all of them.