Discovery of unsuspected pathological states using a new haematology analyser.
A new haematology analyser--the Sysmex NE-8000--provides among other results a bi-dimensional representation of leucocyte populations. Unusual patterns are frequently observed due to platelet aggregation or fibrin polymerisation, and a specific 'rocket-shaped' pattern is also sometimes noted. During a seven month period of routine use 68 such cases were investigated, revealing that this pattern is associated with either severe hepatic dysfunction responsible for patient admission or with various asymptomatic constitutional haemoglobin anomalies. This 'rocket' phenomenon is probably due to incomplete erythrocyte lysis in the leucocyte detector. In some cases it causes spurious leucocyte counting (avoidable by a 1 in 5 pre-dilution of the sample), and alteration of the differential count. To take advantage of this aberrant pattern and to orientate immediate complementary investigations on the basis only of the NE-8000 results, we established a discriminative index.
Corberand
J X
JX
Laboratoire d'Hématologie, CHU Rangueil, Toulouse, France.
Laharrague
P F
PF
Fillola
G
G
Charlet
J P
JP
Cambus
J P
JP
D000328:Adult; D001322:Autoanalysis / Q000295:instrumentation; D001772:Blood Cell Count / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006453:Hemoglobinopathies / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged