METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SCREENING OBSCURED OR PARTIALLY OBSCURED CELLS

摘要

The method and apparatus (900) described are used to sort obscured or partially obscured cells to enumerate one or more subsets of cell populations. For this purpose, one proceeds to the counting (912) a population of white blood cells, together with that of a standard population. The standard population can be a population of the total number of populations of white blood cells, another population of white blood cells which does not conceal the detected characteristic modified or unmodified subassembly to be studied, an artificial population formed by microspheres that do not obscure the modified or unmodified sensed characteristic of the subset to be studied, or a population of white blood cells wherein the sensed characteristic of the subset is entirely or partly changed. The sensed characteristic of the subset to be studied is then modified by binding to microspheres having subset specific monoclonal antibody of interest (916). The population of white blood cells and the standard population are recounted (912) and compared (922) the result of the original count.