The Preliminary Study of Nucleated Red Blood Cell Counting by Automated Hematology Analyzer

• The Preliminary Study of Nucleated Red Blood Cell Counting by Automated Hematology Analyzer

AUTHOR(S)

Jianying LI

Clinical Laboratory, Peking Union Medical College Hospital

SUMMARY

Objectives : To evaluate the performance of the nucleated red blood cell ( NRBC ) counting by automated hematology analyzer and to research its clinical implications.

Methods : NRBC in the peripheral blood of 115 patients suffering with hematological diseases or other diseases were counted by the Sysmex XE-2100, ADVIA 120 automated hematology analyzer and manual microscopy.

Results : There was very good correlation between the manual method and XE-2100 automated method. The average within-run CV of NRBC count using high, medium and low samples was below 6.5%. The NRBC count had good linearity in the range of 0-15
( ×10⁹/L ) ( r=0.9998 ). Both the sensitivity and the negative prediction value were 100%. When the peripheral NRBC increases, the WBC count was significantly higher than the value obtained when the NRBC was deducted ( P=0.0168 ).

Conclusion : The NRBC counting by the XE-2100 was sensitive, accurate and reliable. The XE-2100 could also measure the WBC in samples with increased NRBC. Besides patients with hematological diseases, such as leukemia, anemia etc, the NRBC could also be observed in other patients with some other non-hematological diseases ; e.g. cancer patients under chemotherapy. Therefore, the automated quantification of peripheral NRBC may be helpful to the screening and diagnosis of some hematological and non-hematological diseases.

KEY WORDS

Hematology Analyzer, Nucleated Red Blood Cell, Blood Cell Counting