PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - van der Vorm, Lisa N
AU  - Hendriks, Henriët A
AU  - Smits, Simone M
TI  - Performance of the CellaVision DC-1 digital cell imaging analyser for differential counting and morphological classification of blood cells
AID  - 10.1136/jclinpath-2021-207863
DP  - 2021 Oct 07
TA  - Journal of Clinical Pathology
PG  - jclinpath-2021-207863
4099  - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/early/2021/10/18/jclinpath-2021-207863.short
4100  - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/early/2021/10/18/jclinpath-2021-207863.full
AB  - Aims Recently, a new automated digital cell imaging analyser (Sysmex CellaVision DC-1), intended for use in low-volume and small satellite laboratories, has become available. The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of the DC-1 with the Sysmex DI-60 system and the gold standard, manual microscopy.Methods White blood cell (WBC) differential counts in 100 normal and 100 abnormal peripheral blood smears were compared between the DC-1, the DI-60 and manual microscopy to establish accuracy, within-run imprecision, clinical sensitivity and specificity. Moreover, the agreement between precharacterisation and postcharacterisation of red blood cell (RBC) morphological abnormalities was determined for the DC-1.Results WBC preclassification and postclassification results of the DC-1 showed good correlation compared with DI-60 results and manual microscopy. In addition, the within-run SD of the DC-1 was below 1 for all five major WBC classes, indicating good reproducibility. Clinical sensitivity and specificity were, respectively, 96.7%/95.9% compared with the DI-60% and 96.6%/95.3% compared with manual microscopy. The overall agreement on RBC morphology between the precharacterisation and postcharacterisation results ranged from 49% (poikilocytosis) to 100% (hypochromasia, microcytosis and macrocytosis).Conclusions The DC-1 has proven to be an accurate digital cell imaging system for differential counting and morphological classification of WBCs and RBCs in peripheral blood smears. It is a compact and easily operated instrument that can offer low-volume and small satellite laboratories the possibilities of readily available blood cell analysis that can be stored and retrieved for consultation with remote locations.All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.