No abstract

The reticulocyte count reflects the erythropoietic activity of the bone marrow and is thus useful in both the diagnosis of anemias and in monitoring bone marrow response to therapy. Starting in the mid-1990s, automated flow-cytometric analysis has replaced traditional microscopic quantitation of reticulocytes. Reticulocyte analysis now includes measurements mRNA content and the maturity of reticulocytes, cell volume, hemoglobin concentration and content. The immature reticulocyte fraction is a reliable early predictor of hematopoietic engraftment following allogeneic stem cell transplantation, while the reticulocyte hemoglobin content provides an indirect measure of the functional iron available for new red blood cell production over the previous 3-4 days. Especially in anemic newborns, reticulocyte analysis is useful to help clinicians follow erythropoietic changes, to monitor response to recombinant human erythropoietin therapy, to gauge transfusion needs, and to evaluate jaundice. Despite improved accuracy and precision, significant problems still persist in maintaining adequate levels of precision and comparability across different laboratories. In the absence of better laboratory standardization, having a single reference range for the parameters provided by flow-cytometric studies of reticulocytes remains problematic.

Failure to adequately communicate a critical laboratory value is a potential cause of adverse events. Accreditation requirements specify that clinical laboratories must undertake assessments and appropriate measures to improve the timeliness of critical value reporting and prompt receipt by the responsible caregiver. Documentation and communication processes must be regularly monitored and implemented under ongoing systems for quality monitoring. Critical value reporting is an important phase of the clinical laboratory testing process, and notifications of results outside the target time can indicate ineffectiveness of the process. In the present study, we report data obtained in a 12-month period of critical values analysis and describe a computerized communication system conducive to improving the quality of critical value reporting at a university hospital. Automated communication improves the timeliness of notification and avoids the potential errors for which accreditation programs require read-back of the result. The communication also improves the likelihood of reaching the physician on call and may provide important decision support.

Objectives Patients in Intensive Care Units (ICU) are a high-risk population for sepsis, recognized as a major cause of admission and death. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and prognostication of monocyte distribution width (MDW) in sepsis for patients admitted to ICU. Methods Between January and June 2020, we conducted a prospective observational study during the hospitalization of 506 adult patients admitted to the ICU. MDW was evaluated in 2,367 consecutive samples received for routine complete blood counts (CBC) performed once a day and every day during the study. Sepsis was diagnosed according to Sepsis-3 criteria and patients enrolled were classified in the following groups: no sepsis, sepsis and septic shock. Results MDW values were significantly higher in patients with sepsis or septic shock in comparison to those within the no sepsis group [median 26.23 (IQR: 23.48–29.83); 28.97 (IQR: 21.27–37.21); 21.99 (IQR: 19.86–24.36) respectively]. ROC analysis demonstrated that AUC is 0.785 with a sensitivity of 66.88% and specificity of 77.79% at a cut-off point of 24.63. In patients that developed an ICU-acquired sepsis MDW showed an increase from 21.33 [median (IQR: 19.47–21.72)] to 29.19 [median (IQR: 27.46–31.47)]. MDW increase is not affected by the aetiology of sepsis, even in patients with COVID-19. In sepsis survivors a decrease of MDW values were found from the first time to the end of their stay [median from 29.14 (IQR: 26.22–32.52) to 25.67 (IQR: 22.93–30.28)]. Conclusions In ICU, MDW enhances the sepsis detection and is related to disease severity.

Background Development of automated analyzers for erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) has imposed the need for extensive validation prior to their implementation in routine practice, to ensure comparability with the reference Westergren method. The aim of our study was to perform the analytical validation of two automated ESR analyzers, the Ves-Matic Cube 200 and the TEST1. Methods Validation was performed according to the recent International Council for Standardization in Hematology recommendations and included determination of intrarun and inter-run precision, assessment of sample carryover, hemolysis interference, sensitivity to fibrinogen, method comparison with the gold standard Westergren method and stability test. Results The highest intrarun imprecision was obtained for the low ESR range (33.5% for Ves-Matic Cube; 37.3% for TEST1) while inter-run coefficients of variation on three levels were much better for the TEST1 (0%, 2% and 1.2%) compared to the Ves-Matic Cube 200 on two levels (24.9% and 5.8%). Both Ves-Matic Cube 200 and TEST1 showed no statistically significant difference when compared with Westergren. Bland-Altman analysis yielded overall insignificant mean biases for all comparisons, but a wider dispersion of results and 95% limits of agreement for comparisons including the Ves-Matic Cube 200. Carryover was considered insignificant, while hemolysis had a negative effect on all assessed ESR methods. The highest sensitivity to fibrinogen was observed for the Ves-Matic Cube 200, followed by Westergren and the least sensitive was the TEST1. Conclusions The obtained results proved the analytical validity of the TEST1 and the Ves-Matic Cube 200, and high comparability with the gold standard Westergren method, showing obvious improvements in standardization of ESR methods.