Comparison of Red Blood Cell Morphology between Coulter Gen S and Manual Method

Blood smear examination of red blood cells (RBC) morphology is one approach for diagnosis of various types of anemia. The conventional method, visual inspection under the light microscope is only semiquantitative description of RBC. The automated blood cell analyzers provide the morphological profiles of RBC derived from blood indices and distribution analysis. The present study aimed to compare the definitive messages (hypochromia, anisocytosis and microcytosis) of RBC by automated blood cell analyzer, Coulter Gen S, with microscopic examination. Three hundred and twenty five blood samples of anemic patients with hemoglobin level <10.5 g/dl were studied. It was found that the accuracy to diagnose hypochromia, anisocytosis and microcytosis by automated method were 75.3, 61.7 and 86.6%, respectively. And the specificity of those 3 conditions were 76.2, 48.8, and 89.4%, respectively. But anisocytosis (79.5%) had higher sensitivity than hypochromia (73.4%) and microcytosis (64.7%). From the results, we can preliminary conclude that proper setting red blood cell definitive limits of the automated blood cell analyzer may be used to help the diagnosis of RBC abnormalities. However, the definite diagnosis of RBC morphology still need experienced examination of good blood smear under the light microscope. Keywords : red blood cell morphology, Coulter Gen S.