METHOD FOR ACCURATELY ENUMERATING AND SENSITIVELY QUALIFYING HETEROGENEOUS CELL POPULATIONS IN CYTOLYTIC PROCESSING CONDITIONS

摘要

A method for identifying, characterizing, categorizing and enumerating cells. The method is based on the survival of different cell populations in the sample when the sample condition is being changed to elicit a response. The cells are being monitored either by direct disappearance of intact cells or by the appearance of cell structures, carcasses, ghosts or residuum. In one embodiment, a leukocyte cell decay rate in the presence of an erythrolytic agent is determined by monitoring leukocyte counts at several time intervals. The decay rate is used to determine the presence of fragile leukocyte and the number of leukocytes in the sample. The method corrects errors in leukocyte counts which enables the use of strong erythrolytic agents in presence of lyse-resistant erythrocytes. The leukocyte decay rate can be back extrapolated to time zero to provide an accurate estimate of the leukocyte count initially present in the sample.