Sampling Site Matters When Counting Lymphocyte Subpopulations

Abstract

Clinical and scientific work routinely relies on antecubital venipunctures for hematological, immunological or other analyses on blood. This study tested the hypothesis that antecubital veins can be considered to be a good proxy for other sampling sites. Using a hematocytometer and a flow cytometer, we analyzed the cell counts from samples coming from the radial artery, the dorsal hand veins and the antecubital veins from 18 volunteers. Most surprisingly, we identified the greatest difference not to exist between arterial and venous circulation, but between the distal (radial artery & dorsal hand veins) and proximal (antecubital veins) sampling sites. Naïve T cells had a higher cell count distally compared to proximally and the reverse was true for effector memory T cells. Despite these differences there were high correlations between the different sampling sites, which partially supports our initial hypothesis. Our findings are crucial for the future design and interpretation of immunological research, and for clinical practice. Furthermore, our results suggest a role for interval lymph nodes in the trafficking of lymphocytes.

Influence of Frequent Infectious Exposures on General and Varicella-Zoster Virus-Specific Immune Responses in Pediatricians

“…Eleven age (Ϯ1 year)-and gender-matched normally exposed healthy control individuals (CO) with no known exposure to chickenpox during the past 2 years donated venous blood samples at a single time point (2 to 20 July 2012). Following recently proposed guidelines, venipuncture was performed at fixed sampling sites (48). This study was approved by the ethics board of the University Hospital Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.…”