• Chest · Mar 2024

    Flow cytometry as an alternative to microscopy for the differentiation of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid leukocytes.

    • Kai Bratke, Martin Weise, Paul Stoll, J Christian Virchow, and Marek Lommatzsch.
    • Department of Pneumology and Critical Care Medicine, University of Rostock, Germany.
    • Chest. 2024 Mar 26.

    BackgroundMicroscopy is currently the gold standard to differentiate BAL fluid (BALF) leukocytes. However, local expertise for microscopic BALF leukocyte differentiation is often unavailable in clinical practice.Research QuestionCan automated flow cytometry be used instead of microscopy to differentiate BALF leukocytes?Study Design And MethodsA new automated flow cytometric method for BALF leukocyte differentiation, using four antibodies (anti-CD45, anti-CD66b, anti-HLA-DR, anti-CD52) given to human BALF in one tube, was developed and prospectively validated in 745 unselected, subsequent BALF samples from patients with interstitial lung diseases (455 patients), infectious diseases (196 patients), and other diseases (94 patients). Flow cytometry and traditional microscopy were performed by separate investigators in a double-blind fashion. Results were compared using Spearman`s correlation, Deming regression, and Bland-Altman analysis.ResultsThere was a strong correlation between flow cytometric and microscopic results regarding macrophage/monocyte, lymphocyte, eosinophil, and neutrophil percentages in BALF (P < .001 for all leukocyte subpopulations). Bland-Altman analyses showed that the mean differences between the methods were ≤2% for all four cell types. Flow cytometric results differed less than 20% from microscopic results in more than 95% of all samples. Subgroup analyses confirmed that these results were independent from total leukocyte counts in BALF.InterpretationWe report the first validated flow cytometric method for BALF leukocyte differentiation, which can be used in clinical settings where local expertise for microscopic analysis is unavailable and which can be combined easily with lymphocyte surface marker analysis.Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…