Comparison of automated differential blood cell counts from Abbott Sapphire, Siemens Advia 120, Beckman Coulter DxH 800, and Sysmex XE-2100 in normal and pathologic samples.

Reliable automated blood cell characterization and quantification remain challenging in pathologic samples, whereas slide reviews due to unnecessary flagging should be avoided. We compared 4 modern hematology analyzers-Abbott Sapphire, Siemens Advia 120, Sysmex XE-2100, and Beckman Coulter DxH 800-regarding complete blood cell count (CBC), leukocyte differential count, and flagging efficacy in a total of 202 samples from hematology patients and normal controls. Manual differential count was used as reference. The analyzers exhibited very good correlation for CBC parameters. Neutrophils and eosinophils also showed very good correlations, whereas lymphocytes and monocytes correlated fairly. The Advia 120 displayed notably lower measurements for both parameters, which is attributable to classification of some events as large unstained cells. Basophil counts were unreliable with all analyzers. Flagging for blasts and immature granulocytes showed moderate sensitivity and specificity. Operators must not rely on blast flagging alone to detect leukemic samples with any analyzer.