Reliability and Analyst Performance Limits for the Field and Single Strip Direct Microscopic Somatic Cell Count Procedure.

The means and total components of variance were compared for the field and single strip direct microscopic somatic cell count (DMSCC) procedures. The field count procedure averaged 12 - 28% higher than the single strip count procedure in the 300,000 to 1,200,000 DMSCC/ml range. The sum of the components of variance in logarithm units for the field procedure was 0.01058 (1485 degrees of freedom) with a coefficient of variation of 24%, whereas the sum for the single strip procedure was 0.00834 (2834 degrees of freedom) with a coefficient of variation of 21%. This study demonstrates that the single strip procedure yields more reliable and less variable results than does the field procedure.