Evaluation of a Flow-Cytometric Osmotic Fragility Test for Hereditary Spherocytosis in Chinese Patients.
BACKGROUND
Osmotic fragility testing based on flow cytometry was recently introduced for the screening of hereditary spherocytosis (HS). This study was undertaken to evaluate the clinical diagnostic value of a flow-cytometric osmotic fragility test for HS.


METHODS
Peripheral blood was collected from 237 subjects at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, including 56 HS patients, 86 thalassemia patients and 95 healthy controls. The samples were examined by flow-cytometric osmotic fragility test and the percentage of residual red blood cells was used to determine HS. Peripheral blood smears were performed to examine the red blood cell morphology.


RESULTS
With clinical diagnosis of HS as the gold standard and the percentage of residual red blood cells <23.6% as the diagnostic threshold in the flow-cytometric osmotic fragility test, the sensitivity of the flow-cytometric osmotic fragility test for HS was 85.71% and the specificity was 97.24%.


CONCLUSIONS
The flow-cytometric osmotic fragility test combined with a red blood cell morphology test by peripheral blood smear could be a simple, practical and accurate laboratory screening method for HS.
Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.
Yi-Feng
YF
Tao
Zeng-Fu
ZF
Deng
Lin
L
Liao
Yu-Ling
YL
Qiu
Xue-Lian
XL
Deng
Wen-Qiang
WQ
Chen
Fa-Quan
FQ
Lin
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D019540:Area Under Curve; D044466:Asian People; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009996:Osmotic Fragility / Q000502:physiology*; D010361:Patients; D012372:ROC Curve; D013103:Spherocytosis, Hereditary / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D013789:Thalassemia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology; D055815:Young Adult