Routine diagnostic procedures of myelodysplastic syndromes: value of a structural blood cell parameter (NEUT-X) determined by the Sysmex XE-2100

Diagnostic features of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are often polymorphic and nonspecific including anemia in most cases. Standard parameters provided by an automated analyzer seldom bring any argument for this diagnosis. The aim of this study was to investigate whether some structural parameters, not routinely provided by Sysmex™ XE 2100 analyzer, could help diagnose MDS in a simple way, adapted to routine practice. Blood samples from 184 MDS fully annotated cases and 3545 normal blood count controls were performed with XE 2100 Sysmex™ analyzer. Quantitative and structural parameters were considered. We found that the structural neutrophil parameter, NEUT-X, converted into a semi-quantitative parameter, the granularity index (GI), could be used as a flag for MDS in front of anemia. Negative GI and anemia were able to make otherwise unrecognized MDS stand out in routine practice, increasing the number of slides addressed to review from 67% to 96%, without leading to a large excess of unfounded slide review among non-MDS. Including the GI index in the routine parameters provided by the Sysmex analyzer could be of major help for nonspecialized routine laboratories in detecting MDS.