Evaluation of Efficacy of White Blood Cell Identification in Peripheral Blood by Automated Scanning of Stained Blood Smear Images with Variable Magnification

Abstract

Development of blood smear scanner analyzers is a new promising trend in designing devices for blood cell morphology examination. The efficacy of using the Vision Hema® Ultimate scanner analyzer for differential white blood cell count and identification of nucleated blood cells was evaluated. The average time required to analyze a single cover-glass preparation was found to be (108 ± 17)″. There was no statistically significant difference between the results of differential white blood cell count performed manually and using the Vision Hema® Ultimate device (p > 0.05); the results were virtually identical. The Spearman’s correlation coefficient was highest for segmented neutrophils, lymphocytes and eosinophils (0.9638%, 0.9342%, and 0.9172%, respectively). For monocytes and basophils it was 0.9047% and 0.7613%, respectively, while its lowest values were observed for immature myeloid cells. The Vision Hema® Ultimate blood smear scanner analyzer was shown to provide high accuracy and productivity of differential white blood cell count in peripheral blood smears.