Review of Coulter JR Interpretive Report and manual blood film assessment.
The Interpretive Reporting feature of the Coulter JR, particularly suspect messages, was examined to determine instrument comparison with manual differentials and blood film assessment. Reliability of the Coulter JR instrument in identifying abnormal specimens was proven in the true positive rating obtained in this study. This emphasized the need to further investigate those specimens which generate suspect flags and supports the decision in our laboratory to include the presence of suspect flags as one of the criteria for manual differential and blood film assessment. The significant false negative rating shown by our study demonstrates that patient specimens may be categorized as normal by the instrument, when in fact some abnormality may be detected by manual assessment. This discrepancy was primarily due to an increase in absolute numbers of band cells. Good correlation was demonstrated between the Coulter JR histogram differential and the manual differential, exclusive of absolute monocytes. The instrument adds an important dimension to morphology quality control through comparative analysis of technologist-instrument results.
Ring
A E
AE
Queensway-Carleton Hospital, Nepean, Ontario.
D001322:Autoanalysis / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards; D001800:Blood Specimen Collection / Q000592:standards*; D003625:Data Collection; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007755:Laboratories, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D009864:Ontario; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012308:Risk Management