Evaluation of the leukocyte differential on a new automated flow cytometry hematology analyzer.

INTRODUCTION

The Hematoflow (Beckman Coulter, USA) is a new automated hematology analyzer, which provides a 16-part white blood cell count (WBC) differential.

METHODS

We evaluated the differential WBC count performance of the Hematoflow. 101 blood samples from patients were selected for comparison analysis.

RESULTS

The methodological comparison of the WBC differential parameters of neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes and eosinophils showed good correlations among 4 different analyses. More than 1% of blast cells were counted in 30 of 101 samples. A good correlation for blast cell counts obtained by Hematoflow was found with the reference manual method (r=0.9637, P 0.0001). For blast B, Hematoflow shows good correlation with reference method results but did not identify blast T.

CONCLUSIONS

These results demonstrate that the Hematoflow has a comparable performance with the Sysmex XE-2100 and indicate that B cell lineage ALL can be identified by the use of the Hematoflow in an initial evaluation of acute leukemia.