Evaluation of an automated method for measuring hematopoietic progenitor cells to determine the start of stem cell apheresis.

Sammanfattning: Stem cell transplantation is a known treatment for various cancers. Currently most cells transplanted are collected via apheresis. An injection of growth factor is given to the patient to start the proliferation and mobilization of stem cells. Apheresis can be initiated when the patient has a stem cell count of 15 to 20 stem cells/µL of peripheral blood. The standard method with which stem cells are analysed is immune flow cytometry where CD34+ and CD45+ are identified with targeted fluorescent antibodies. This analysis takes more than 45 minutes to perform.     Sysmex XN-9000 analyses samples with flow cytometry by lysing erythrocytes and platelets and staining the leukocytes with fluorescent dye. Analysis of the hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPC) takes less than 4 minutes. The purpose of this study was to investigate ifit is possible to predict the start of the apheresis using XN-9000.     For this study, 43 samples were analysed using both methods. Using the sign test, a p-value was calculated to <0.05, which indicates a significant difference between the results received by the two methods. Spearman’s rank correlation gave an observed ρ-value > the critical ρ-value which revealed a correlation between the methods, although not linear according to Pearson’s correlation coefficient. PPV and NPV were calculated with cut-off at 20, 30 and 40 HPC/µL blood where 20 HPC/µL gave an NPV at 100 %. According to the test made, there is correlation between the two methods, but further samples must be analysed to investigate how the results should be compared.