ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Differential counting and morphological analysis of nucleated cells in body fluids (eg, cerebrospinal fluid and pleural fluid) are of great diagnostic importance to the clinician. A recent development in this field was the introduction of an application for an automated microscopy system, the DM96 Body Fluid module, enabling the automated analysis of body fluid samples. This computerised system provides an automated morphological analysis of body fluids, including an automated classification of all nucleated cells. AIMS: To investigate the ability of the digital microscopy system, DM96, to automatically classify cells in different types of body fluids. METHODS: A total of 177 body fluids (including cerebrospinal fluid, abdominal fluid and continuous ambulant peritoneal dialysis fluid) were analysed on the DM96, and results were compared with the manual microscopy method. RESULTS: A study in 177 samples demonstrates an overall preclassification accuracy of 90% in spinal fluid and 83% in other body fluids using the automated system. Correlation coefficients for postclassification as compared with manual review range from 0.92 to 0.99 for spinal fluid sample analyses and from 0.83 to 0.98 for other body fluids. The within-run variation of automated classification is less than 6% for all cell categories (4% excluding macrophages). CONCLUSION: The DM96 has proven to be reliable and efficient, contributing to overall quality improvement in morphological analysis and automated cell classification of peripheral blood and other body-fluid samples.
Subject(s)
Body Fluids/cytology , Cytodiagnosis/methods , Cerebrospinal Fluid/cytology , Humans , Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods , Leukocyte Count/instrumentation , Leukocytes/classification , Microscopy/instrumentation , Microscopy/methods , Peritoneal Dialysis, Continuous AmbulatoryABSTRACT
AIM: To evaluate the novel anti-endomysium (anti-EMA) detection based on ELISA. METHODS: Anti-EMA IgA was measured by a novel ELISA in 196 patients with gastrointestinal symptoms and suspected mal-absorption. Data were compared with those obtained by the conventional IF test. RESULTS: A good concordance of 98% was found between these two assays. In sera of 161 patients (82%) both assays tested negative whereas in sera of 31 patients (16%) both assays tested positive for the presence of anti-EMA antibodies. Discrepancies between EMA-ELISA and EMA-immunofluorescence (IF) were found in only 4 patients (2%). CONCLUSION: This ELISA can replace IF for the detection of anti-EMA antibodies and provide clinicians with an excellent tool to screen for celiac disease in patients with gastrointestinal complaints.
