Initial observations on instrumental differential blood leukocyte counts during chemotherapy of patients with leukemia

Abstract

Differences in fluorescence emission of blood leukocytes supravitally stained with acndine orange can be measured at two different wave lengths by a commercial flow-through cytofluorimeter, and used to distinguish at least three classes of cells. Instrumental differential leukocyte counts were performed in this way on a group of leukemic patients during one or more courses of chemotherapy. The counts obtained correlated well with manual counts, and with the clinical status of the patients, despite wide variations in total white cell count. While these are preliminary observations on a relatively small number of patients, they warrant further study of instrumental differential leukocyte counts as a possible additional means of monitoring chemotherapy of leukemia.