Validation of the Beckman Coulter AcT 5 Diff Analyzer in a Reference Laboratory

White blood cell counting at point-of-care testing: A review

White blood cells, which are also called leukocytes, are found in the immune system that are involved in protecting the body against infections and foreign invaders. Conventional methods of leukocyte analysis provide valuable and accurate information to medical specialists. Analyzing and diagnosing of a disease requires a combination of multiple biomarkers, in some cases, however, such as personal health care, this will occupy some medical resources and causes unnecessary consumption. Traditional method (such as flow cytometer) for WBC counting is time and labor consuming. Compared to gold standard (flow-based fraction/micropore filtration) or improved filtration methods for WBC counting, this is still a lengthy and time consuming process and can lead to membrane fouling due to the rapid accumulation of biological materials. Therefore, the analysis of WBC counts requires more compact and efficient equipment. The microfluidic technologies, powered by different field (force, thermal, acoustic, optical, magnetic) and other methods for leukocyte counting and analysis, are much cost-efficient and can be used in in-home or in resource-limited areas to achieve Point-of-Care (POC). In this review, we highlight the mainstream devices that have been commercialized and extensively employed for patients for WBC counting, Next, we present some recent development with regards to leucocyte counting (mainly microfluidic technologies) and comment on their relative merits. We aim to focus and discuss the possibility of achieving POC and help researchers to tackle individual challenges accordingly. Finally, we offer some technologies in addition to previous detection devices, such as image recognition technology and cloud computing, which we believe have great potential to further promote real-time detection and improve medical diagnosis.

Evaluation of the Sysmex pocH-1001 haematology analyser in an outdoor oncology service

Since rapid blood count analysis as near patient testing is expanding, we evaluated the use of a Sysmex pocH-100i compact haematology analyser in an outdoor oncology setting according to the recently published International Council for Standardization in Haematology (ICSH) guidelines. In total, 838 blood samples from oncology patients were analysed by pocH-100i and re-analysed by a high-throughput haematology analyser for comparison (Abbott CD-4000 or Sysmex XE-2100) to evaluate in use imprecision, comparability and vote-outs. Imprecision was less than 5%, except for platelet enumeration in the low range (within-run imprecision 7%). Good comparability was found even for platelet enumeration in the low range (r2 = 0.82). Vote-outs were found in 10.6% of examined samples. In conclusion, the Sysmex pocH-100i demonstrates good imprecision conform with former publications, produces reliable results in normal and in lower ranges comparable to the results of high throughput haematology analysers. In a well controlled management plan the Sysmex pocH-100i is suitable for near patient testing in oncology.