2-CENTER EVALUATION OF THE ABBOTT CD3500 BLOOD COUNTER

The CD3500 blood counter (Abbott Laboratories) is a 33 parameter fully automated blood counter that produces a five part differential count with flagging of leucocyte abnormalities. In this evaluation excellent correlation between CD3500 and Coulter STKR blood counter was found f or all red cell and platelet parameters on the 221 samples tested. Stu dies of carryover, mixing efficiency and precision also gave excellent results. There was a good correlation with manual 400 cell differenti al counts for neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes and eosinophils for the 468 samples compared. Correlation of CD3500 and manual basophil co unts was poor. Normal samples stored at 4 degrees C and analysed while cold showed satisfactory stability for WBC, RBC, Hb, MCV and platelet s for 48 h and a stable differential for 24 h. Correlation with the di fferential count produced by the Coulter STKS showed good correlation for neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes and eosinophils; correlation w ith STKS basophils was poor. False positive flagging rate varied betwe en 8.9% (Band and/or IG) and 0.9% (NRBC) depending on the nature of th e nag; 5.8% of samples exhibited two or more false positive nags. No s ignificant breakdowns were encountered during the period of the evalua tion. The scatterplot displays of laser light scatter produced by the instrument provide an interesting adjunct to conventional morphology.