General Information

We were asked recently about how to validate blue tops for EDTA induced platelet clumping. Does anyone have a procedure on how they validated the blue tops or just putting in a disclaimer when used? We always review a slide when running and perform the calculation.

My lab has been dealing with a broken micro-capillary reader for too long, and I've been looking at trying to find a replacement/alternative that isn't found on eBay. We currently have the beloved wheel and centrifuge combo by Damon/IEC Division, but they unfortunately stopped manufacturing these. What does your lab currently use?

Hello everyone. First post here and I was wondering if anyone here can recommend a certified plasma kit to perform a local ISI calibration to confirm their PT-INR testing setup matches package insert values? The lab I work at is a bit odd in that we use one companies PT-INR reagent with another companies coagulation instruments. Thank you in advance for any leads or suggestions.

Hi everyone! We currently use hepzyme to help rule out heparin contamination and compare results for heparinized samples when monitoring heparin therapy. This process ties up one of our instruments for testing and has to have multiple flush cycles before testing patients again after each hepzyme run. Does anyone know of POC instrument that could essentially replace the need to run Hepzyme on our main Stagos?

How often do you run Hemocytometer QC, is there a CLSI standard for this? We currently run every 8 hours but I would like to do every 24 - should this have an IQCP

Does anyone have tips or warnings about using a Sysmex Pochi CBC with 3 part differential in an oncology office? We currently staff a medical technologist and have Beckman Coulter analyzer on site for 6 hours a day. We do maybe 10 cbcs a day. With the staffing shortage we are trying to think of a way to better use our staff yet still give the oncologists results they can use to treat patients Any advice appreciated! jonna

Does anyone use an automated platform for making gram stains? If so, does it meet you expectations for quality of gram stain?

Hello! Our labs our currently having issues with QC stability using the new 24 hour QC for the Compact Max analyzer. Has anyone else experienced this? The company is telling us to widen our range, but we don't feel comfortable doing this. thank you, Betsy

What do you use to seal a crystal slide? We use clear nail polish? Has anyone from an accrediting agency said anything or recommend anything.

I always have 2 stainers in operation - Beckmans SMS, and then a benchtop backup. The question has come up regarding whether or not these need to be correlated on a 6 month basis. Because I live in NYS, and while there currently is no regulation stating we need to do cross-over studies or correlation when we switch lot numbers or manufacturers of toilet paper, I'm sure it's coming. So - does anyone else out there with more than 1 stainer perform 6 month correlations between them? We are documenting stain quality on a daily basis.

I have a colleague who is doing laboratory work as part of a medical mission in Central America. The only hematology stain she has is a quick stain with three bottles; fixative, stain A (pink, presumably eosin) and Stain B (blue, presumably methylene blue) She is asking about using the stain in malaria testing. I know the CDC recommends Giemsa, and using Wrights only as a quick test for follow up with Giemsa. Neither is an option for her. Does anyone on the listserve have any experience with detecting malaria on a quick stained blood smear?

I hope a phlebotomy question to this forum is ok--please forgive if not. I will be teaching phlebotomy in an MLS program soon, and I find that students often struggle with where to initially insert the needle--some start too low, many start right on top of the most prominent part of the vein and get a little blood spurt. I wonder if it is possible to use a surgery marking pen to mark the site. Not being a surgeon, I don't really know whether surgeons make incisions right through the mark, and don't know if by the same token you could insert the phlebotomy needle through a marked site. Thank you, generous forum members, for entertaining my question. I am a…

On sysmex Xn 1000, we could get WBC count by the WDF channel. So could we run CBC without WNR reagent?

Hello everyone, I have a question as a med lab Hematology student. Does anyone have experience using the HemosIL D-Dimer HS 500 latex enhanced immunoassay on the ACL top machine, where the manual pippeting of 1000ul patient sample is required?! If so would you know what effect expelling the patient sample to the first stop on the pipette, therefore leaving a tiny amount of sample in the discarded pipette tip would have on the result?! Thank you!

Hi All, I am just wondering what you all are doing about the Blue Top Coag tube shortage. We have gone to fingerstick protimes but that doesn't cover all our coag testing.

Does anyone have a copy of the CLSI GP34-A (Validation Verification of Blood Tubes)?

Hello every one, In hemoglobin chromatography (HPLC), we sometimes get small, insignificant peaks. Like Hb-S peak of 8.0, Hb-C peak of 7.5 (RT 180 secs). The only things which we do are to either retest with same sample or ask for fresh sample. Point is, the hemograms and histories of such cases have not been helpful up till now. Is there anything else which could be done?

We are switching to a different manufacturer for FDP. I can't find validation material out there. We don't get hardly any FDP's and most of them are negative. Any suggestions?

Does Sysmex have the capability to perform fetal cells count for KB?

Does anyone have an XN-20? The vendor makes a claim of 40% reduction in Blast/Abnlymph flagging when repeated on an XN-20. I see other papers have published a 12% reduction in review rates. Just wondering if anyone has taken the plunge to purchase one of these and what their experience has been.

Hello all. Am I the only one that doesn't get hemocytometer controls. We run a liquid control when we do them, but it really seems that manual counts should be an issue of competency with a validated hemocytometer, not a qc issue. Even if you get a manufactured disposable hemocytometer with multiple counting areas you're only running qc on two areas that you don't even use for counting the patients. So it seems that QC is assessing the tech performance rather than the hemocytometer. Particularly if using an old glass one with the same coverslip over and over.

We have a patient with a very strong cold antibody who also has icteric interference. In order to resolve the high MCHC we have to do a warm saline replacement, this works splendidly. My question is in regards to the retic. When we run the retic without doing a warm saline replacement vs with the warm saline replacement there is a significant difference in results. Are we supposed to do the warm saline replacement to get a valid retic count or is it unnecessary? Thank you very much

Hi all we are validating ALLINITY HQ machine we almost pass all parameters except for reticulocyte count (both precision and accuracy). We repeated samples many times still not pass. we checked our QC of machine,, pass Any further thoughts for next step ?? if anyone use HOPE system what was the total allowable error used ??

Hi, Hope you all are safe and healthy. How do we report automated WBC count run on sysmex XN-3000?

Is there any Alinity HQ users who have results evaluation report for CAP survey FH9-B who would be willing to share a copy of the report? we are evaluating Alinity HQ and want to Alinity group means. Thanks