• Seon Young Kim, Ji-Eun Kim, Hyun Kyung Kim, Kyou-Sup Han, and Cheng Hock Toh.
• Dept of Laboratory Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101, Daehang-no Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-744, Republic of Korea.
• Am. J. Clin. Pathol. 2010 Oct 1; 134 (4): 634-47.

AbstractPlatelet counting in patients with acute leukemia or disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) may have a risk for erroneous counts owing to the presence of nonplatelet particles or platelet activation. We evaluated automated platelet counting methods using the Abbott Cell-Dyn Sapphire (Abbott Diagnostics, Santa Clara, CA), Sysmex XE-2100 (Sysmex, Kobe, Japan), ADVIA 2120 (Siemens Diagnostics, Tarrytown, NY), and Beckman Coulter LH 750 (Beckman Coulter, Miami, FL) compared with the international reference method (IRM). Automated platelet counting methods were inaccurate compared with the IRM, without evidence of interfering nonplatelet particles. It is interesting that platelet activation markers were associated with DIC severity and erroneous platelet counting, suggesting that platelet activation is a potential source of inaccuracy. Furthermore, the artifactual in vitro platelet activation induced a high degree of intermethod variation in platelet counts. The inaccuracy of automated platelet counts increased the risk for misdiagnosis of DIC. More attention needs to be given to the accuracy of platelet counts, especially in clinical conditions with florid platelet activation.

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