An automatic leukocyte analyzer. Validity of its results.

A statistical study was undertaken to evaluate the Corning Larc™ Leukocyte Analyzer by comparing its results with those of 20 medical technologists with regard to reproducibility and degree of agreement. A special effort was made to use statistically quantitative comparisons, large numbers of samples, and a large group of technologists. The results of the Larc are frequently more reproducible than those of technologists, especially for bands and segmented neutrophils. Other comparative studies show that the Larc reports clinically equivalent proportions of the different cell types, normal and abnormal. This is true for case by case as well as cumulative comparisons. All known cases of leukemia were detected by the Larc during the study, although the number of samples from leukemia patients was small (11 of 700).