The HemoCue WBC DIFF system could be used for leucocyte and neutrophil counts but not for full differential counts

Abstract

The correlations between the white blood cell counts and neutrophil counts in this real-life study were good enough to diagnose children in emergency department and oncology unit settings. However, the high number of pathological flags from fingerstick samples, which made reruns necessary, limited the usefulness of the instrument.

White blood cell counting at point‐of‐care testing: A review

“…In the past few years, portable POC has gradually came into use. Portable devices with WBC counting function such as HemoCue ® , have attracted much attention [5]. However, the miniaturization of the device implies a reduction in functionality and some handheld devices have only limited functions.…”

“…Therefore, POCT equipment must be effective and result-satisfying (i.e., high efficiency and high purity of WBCs) and low cost. Although there are WBC counting devices on the market, their performances are always deficient in some of the aspects mentioned above [4,5]. To this end, recent studies in this field have led to substantial progress.…”

Preliminary Results from a Prospective Study Comparing White Blood Cell and Neutrophil Counts from a Laboratory to Those Measured with a New Device in Patients with Breast Cancer

“…A new device called HemoCue ® WBC DIFF (Radiometer Medical ApS, Brønshøj, Denmark), which has been developed and CE-marked for the use by healthcare professionals, may be an option to help such patients. In a few studies, this pointof-care solution was found acceptably reliable and reproducible with a good correlation of up to >0.99 for the measurement of WBC and neutrophil counts when compared to standard methods (2)(3)(4). In another study comparing the HemoCue ® WBC DIFF to venous samples analyzed at a laboratory, the correlation was less favorable for both WBC (r=0.77) and neutrophils (r=0.82) (5).…”

Clinical training and validation of the LeukoScope: a low-cost, point-of-care device to perform white blood cell and neutrophil counts

“…Preliminary validation of this device shows accurate performance for WBC counts and neutrophil counts, adequate performance for lymphocyte counts, and weak performance for monocyte and eosinophil counts. [9][10][11][12] Despite promising results, this device is also too costly for routine use in many low-resource areas ($5.58 per test, purchased in Malawi in November 2018). While other groups have developed similar imaging-based systems to perform a WBC count and differential, these systems lack the portability and/or simple sample preparation schemes to be truly implemented in at the point of care.…”