Abstract
BACKGROUND: Accurate evaluation of hematology analyzers is recommended before these devices can be broadly introduced for the routine testing of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD), ascitic, and pleural fluids. METHODS: We evaluated the performance of Mindray BC-6800 for white blood cell (WBC) and differential cell count in 50 CAPD, 60 ascitic and 40 pleural compared with manual microscopy. Within-run precision, limit of blank (LoB), limit of detection (LoD), limit of quantitation (LoQ), and carryover were assessed. RESULTS: The Passing-Bablok regression in all fluids showed the following equations: y(WBC) =1.05x+3.31 (95%CI slope 0.95 to 1.12; intercept -0.25 to 5.52); y(MN) =0.85x+15.63 (95%CI slope 0.72 to 1.05; intercept -24.18 to 84.47); and y(PMN) =1.21x+13.37 (95%CI slope 1.03 to 1.35; intercept 4.00 to 32.47) with bias 78 cells/μL. The AUC for clinical PMN cut-off was 0.88 (95%CI: 0.77 to 0.98). In ascitic, pleural, and CAPD fluids the AUC for clinical PMN cut-off were 0.88 (95%CI: 0.63 to 1.00), 0.83 (95%CI: 0.68 to 0.99), and 1.00 (95%CI: 1.00 to 1.00) respectively. CV ranged from 3%-34%. LoB of 3 cell/μL was verified. LoD and LoQ reported the same result (8 cells/μL). Carry over never exceeded 0.05%. CONCLUSION: The effectiveness of BC-6800 to categorize cells from different body fluids was not compromised by the slight positive bias observed. This conclusion is supported by the high AUC and agreement between the automated method and the reference method. The results show that BC-6800 offers rapid, accurate, and reproducible results for clinical management of CAPD, ascitic, and pleural fluids.