J Lab Med Qual Assur.  2007 Dec;29(2):211-216.

Evaluation of Automated Flow Cytometric Analyzer Sysmex UF-100 for Cell Counting of Cerebrospinal Fluid

• Lee JY
• Kim JH
• Shin JH
• Kim HR
• Lee JN

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The counting of erythrocyte and leukocyte in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is still performed microscopically, using a chamber in most laboratories. However, it is imprecise, has wide inter-observer variability, and is labor-intensive and time-consuming. This study was aimed to examine the possibility of using Sysmex UF-100 flow cytometry (Toa Medical Electronics, Japan) as a means of counting cells in CSF samples.
METHODS
From May to September 2006, we obtained 115 routinely collected CSF samples from 90 patients. We compared the performance of the automated method of the UF-100 with the manual counting method using Neubauer chamber.
RESULTS
Accuracy statistics for erythrocyte and leukocyte showed a high correlation between the UF-100 and the manual counting method, with correlation coefficients of r2=0.95 and 0.89, respectively. Linearity results demonstrated that the UF-100 method provides accurate results throughout the reportable ranges of erythrocyte and leukocytes. A high degree of inter-assay precision for the UF-100 method was seen. Five cases with high lymphocytes percentage showed falsely low value of leukocyte counts.
CONCLUSIONS
The flow cytometric analysis of CSF with the UF-100 offered a rapid and reliable erythrocyte and leukocyte count. UF-100 is expected to be useful for screening method in CSF cell counting. But the manual counting method is still needed for the samples with high leukocyte count or contaminated with peripheral bloods.

Keyword

Cerebrospinal fluid; UF-100; Urine flow cytometer; Chamber counting

MeSH Terms

Cell Count*
Cerebrospinal Fluid*
Electronics, Medical
Erythrocytes
Flow Cytometry
Humans
Leukocyte Count
Leukocytes
Lymphocytes
Mass Screening
Observer Variation