I am looking at purchasing a new analyzer for my donor center. We do donor pre/post counts and product QC so I need something that has a high linearity for platelets. I have the TRC-C from CAP and it seems that the number of labs using the SYSMEX XE-2100/L (Blood Center) is the highest. Does anybody have a preference if they have used multiple instruments? We process approximately 3400 units of pheresis platelets /year (I do not have the Donor # breakdown). Thanks!

I have lots of Hematology experience from my previous job, no donor center expereince but I don't think you can go wrong wtih a Sysmex XE2100.

At the request of a Hem/Onc doc one time, I played around with an expired plt pheresis product, spiking blood samples with plts concentrated from the expired product and I got linearilty in the neighborhood of 2,500,000 plt count. Nothing in the line of a validation , just playing.

Ask the reps they can tell you how far you can push it.

Thanks! I talked to the rep and the linearity goes up to 5 million which is great.

I am with a hospital blood bank (including a donor center). The hematology laboratory uses the Sysmex XE2100 for both patient work and our product QC. The linearity of the machine is terrific. They love that they never have to do dilutions for product QC. One item I will toss out as an FYI: To ensure the instrument wasn't reporting cell fragments as platelets and miss a potential patient with an extremely low platelet count, the laboratory established the femtoliter setting at a slightly higher cutoff level. This act had the following impact: They are sure to catch patients with low platelet counts....but some of the smaller platelets in products go uncounted. That means our product counts tend to be artificially on the lower side. Sysmex also offers an instrument intended specifically for Donor Centers. You might want to take a look at that instrument as an option.

For those of you who have validated a hematology analyzer for platelet counts on plateletphersis products, can you provide me with information on what you did to validate the instrument? I am working on validating a Beckman-Coulter LH 750 and DxH and need a reference point. My fax number is 901.595.4135 or you can email me at crystal.melloh@stjude.org. Than you in advance!