Abstract
Hitherto, there has been no comprehensive study on the usefulness of cell population data (CPD) parameters as a screening tool in the discrimination of non-neoplastic and neoplastic haematological disorders. Hence, we aimed to develop an algorithm derived from CPD parameters to enable robust screening of neoplastic from non-neoplastic samples and subsequently to aid in differentiating various neoplastic haematological disorders. In this study, the CPD parameters from 245 subtypes of leukaemia and lymphoma were compared against 1103 non-neoplastic cases, and those CPD parameters that were vigorous discriminants were selected for algorithm development. We devised a novel algorithm: [(SD-V-NE*MN-UMALS-LY*SD-AL2-MO)/MN-C-NE] to distinguish neoplastic from non-neoplastic cases. Following that, the single parameter MN-AL2-NE was used as a discriminant to rule out reactive cases from neoplastic cases. We then assessed CPD parameters that were useful in delineating leukaemia subtypes as follows: AML (SD-MALS-NE and SD-UMALS-NE), APL (MN-V-NE and SD-V-MO), ALL (MN-MALS-NE and MN-LMALS-NE) and CLL (SD-C-MO). Prospective studies were carried out to validate the algorithm and single parameter, MN-AL2-NE. We propose these CPD parameter-based discriminant strategies to be adopted as an initial screening and flagging system in the preliminary evaluation of leukocyte morphology.