Automated differential leukocyte count in horses, cattle, and cats using the Technicon H-1E hematology system.

This study compares the accuracy of automated and traditional microscopic methods in counting different types of white blood cells in blood samples from horses, cattle and cats.

Study Overview

• The study involved comparing the results of differential leukocyte counts performed by using an automated system, the Technicon H-1E Hematology System, and a traditional microscopic method known as the M-Diff.
• The comparison involved blood samples from 129 horses, 40 cattle, and 140 cats.

Methods and Findings

• The team repeated the comparison after creating subsets of data. They produced these subsets by discarding samples that showed certain patterns suggesting potential errors with the automated differential cell count method (A-Diff).
• The results show that there is a good correlation between the A-Diff and M-Diff methods when it comes to counting neutrophils and lymphocytes across all three species.
• For equine monocytes (a type of white blood cell found in horses), the correlation between the A-Diff and M-Diff methods is moderately well and it significantly improves when using the selected data set. However, the results didn’t correlate well for bovine (cattle) and feline (cats) monocytes.

Inaccuracies and Limitations

• The A-Diff method was found to be inaccurate when it comes to counting feline eosinophils (a type of white blood cell common in cats).
• The study suggests that the A-Diff method might be accurate for counting eosinophils in horses and cattle, but due to the lack of adequate examples of eosinophilia (increased number of eosinophils) in the sample set, this could not be confirmed.
• Moreover, basophils (a type of white blood cell) were too infrequently found in the blood samples of cattle and horses to verify the accuracy of the A-Diff method. Furthermore, basophilia (high level of basophils) identified by the M-Diff method in a cat wasn’t identified by the A-Diff method.