Performance of Abbott Alinity hq hematology analyzer for automated cell counting of body fluids

INTRODUCTION: Body fluid cell counting and differentiation provide essential information for diagnosis and monitoring of diverse pathologies. We evaluated the performance of the newly launched Abbott Alinity hq hematology analyzer for automated cell counting in body fluids and compared red blood cell (RBC) and total nucleated cell (TNC) counts with the Cell-Dyn Sapphire automated hematology analyzer. Differential counts were compared with microscopic differentiation on cytocentrifuged preparations. METHODS: Background concentration limits, limit of detection (LOD), linearity, imprecision, functional sensitivity and carryover were evaluated. For method comparison, we collected 172 body fluids (17 continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis fluids, 56 cerebrospinal fluids and 99 serous fluids). RESULTS: Background concentration limits were ≤1000 cells/μL for RBC counts and ≤3 cells/μL for TNC counts. The LOD was 1000 RBC/µL and 5 TNC/µL. Results from linear regression analysis revealed excellent linearity. Functional sensitivity was 3000 cells/µL for RBC counts and 50 cells/µL for TNC counts. Carryover was 0.6% and 0.1% for TNC and RBC, respectively. The Alinity hq shows good clinical performance. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated comparable performance for body fluid cell counting between the Alinity hq analyzer and the Cell-Dyn Sapphire. The Alinity hq can be very useful as a screening tool for body fluid cell counting.