Applications of flow cytometry in transfusion medicine

Abstract

T RANSFUSION medicine has become a multidisciplinary field with many recent developments that continue to challenge the classical immune-technologies currently in use. Laserbased flow-cytometric analysis is a relatively recent technology that has had widespread application in medical and biologic research, and has been used with increasing regularity in transfusion medicine. The flow cytometer has had an impact in the field of transfusion medicine because of its ability to analyze individual populations of cells and cell epitopes by sensitive, reproducible, and objective methods. This is because of the use of highly specific fluorochrome-labeled monoclonal antibodies and the ability to evaluate large numbers of cells in a short time. Another advantage of flowcytometric analysis stems from the ability to retain results as permanently stored computer files that, at the analytical level, can be readily accessed to re-examine and re-analyze experiments performed in the past. There is a considerable body of literature on the application of flow cytometry to a wide diversity of medical diagnosis and research and these are listed, in part, in Table 1. The technology has been applied to examine all of the cell populations found in blood and, over the past decade, the technology has moved from research laboratories to clinical laboratories, primarily because of advances in the specificity and reproducibility of the probes (monoclonal antibodies), the ease of instrumentation, and the enhancement of computer power. This review focuses on the use of the flow cytometer in transfusion medicine, with attention to investigations of red blood cells (RBC), platelets, and white blood cells (WBC), as indicated in Table 2. Earlier work in this area was reviewed in 1988 by Nance 1 and emphasis will be on developments and applications over the past 6 years.