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Clinical evaluation of a simple image cytometer for CD4 enumeration on HIV-infected patients
Xiao Li1, Christian Breukers, Aurel Ymeti
1Department of Medical Cell Biophysics, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.
Background:
Affordable, easy-to-use, and reliable CD4(+) T lymphocyte enumeration systems are needed in resource-constrained settings to monitor HIV.
Methods:
A simple image cytometer was used to count fluorescently labeled CD4(+) T and CD8(+) T lymphocytes from CD3 immunomagnetically selected cells on blood specimens of 460 HIV-1-infected patients in Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand. Results were compared with flow cytometry (FCM).
Results:
CD4(+) T lymphocyte counts by image cytometer were comparable (R > or = 0.97) with those by the FACSCount and the FACScan with a bias of 7.3 and 9.1%, respectively. At very low CD4(+) T lymphocyte counts (< or =50/microl) some over-count outliers were observed by the FACScan and image cytometer when compared with the FACSCount. For CD8 enumeration, the image cytometer showed a good correlation (R = 0.96) and a consistent undercount (approximately 17%) when compared with the FACSCount.
Conclusions:
Evaluation of the image cytometer for CD4 and CD8 enumeration demonstrated comparable results with FCM on a population of HIV-1-infected patients. The image cytometer is a good alternative method for point-of-care settings in resource-constrained countries.
