Evaluation of the new body fluid mode on the Sysmex XE-5000 for counting leukocytes and erythrocytes in cerebrospinal fluid and other body fluids

Background: We evaluated the body fluid (BF) mode on the new Sysmex XE-5000 analyzer. Methods: Red (RBC) and white blood cell (WBC) (differential) counts of BFs (139 patient samples and 87 normal samples) were measured and compared to the Fuchs-Rosenthal chamber and stained cytospin slides. Results: Extended cell counting using the BF mode was noted to have an improved WBC detection limit (CV20%) of 10×106/L. Excellent agreement with the manual method was observed for most BFs [mean bias +2 to 6×106/L for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and –1 to 12×106/L for other fluids]. In CSF, the BF-mode counted more WBC (polymorphic nuclear cells) compared with the manual method (mean bias +5 to 6×106/L), especially in samples with low cell counts (