🩺 Innovations in Clinical Hematology: Portable Analyzer vs. Laboratory Giants
Monitoring the condition of patients with hematological diseases requires regular control of peripheral blood parameters. The main difficulty lies in the need for rapid results to adjust therapy, especially when hematotoxicity develops after cytostatic treatment. 🧪
A recent study conducted by Czech scientists from the University Hospital Ostrava evaluated the capabilities of the portable HemoScreen system. This point-of-care testing (POCT) device uses artificial intelligence and microfluidics technologies to analyze blood in just 6 minutes. ⏱️
Study Essence 🔬 Specialists compared HemoScreen results with parameters from three “gold standards” of laboratory diagnostics: Sysmex XN, Beckman Coulter DxH 560, and HORIBA Yumizen H550. The study involved 137 people, including patients with acute leukemias, multiple myeloma, and myelodysplastic syndromes.
Key Findings:
✅ Analysis Accuracy: The device demonstrated high correlation with large stationary analyzers for key parameters: total white blood cell count, hemoglobin concentration, and absolute neutrophil count.
✅ Capillary Blood: The study confirmed that capillary blood (finger-prick) analysis results on HemoScreen are comparable to venous blood data. This opens up prospects for simplifying the biomaterial collection procedure for patients with difficult venous access. 💉
✅ Critical Conditions: The device effectively identified severe neutropenia and anemia, which is critically important for deciding on growth factor administration or transfusion support. 🩸
📊 Diagnostic Nuances: At extremely low platelet levels (less than 50 × 10⁹/L), greater data variability was observed. In such cases, clinicians are recommended to verify the result using a classical laboratory method, as the tactic for platelet concentrate transfusion depends on it.
Summary for Clinical Practice 👩⚕️ The implementation of such mobile systems significantly reduces waiting times for results and improves patients’ quality of life. Cell visualization technology using machine vision makes portable diagnostics a reliable complement to classical laboratory services, especially in outpatient monitoring and palliative care settings.
Source: Hradská K, Pulcer M, Mihályová J, et al. Comparison of the HemoScreen Point-Of-Care Haematology Analyser With Sysmex XN, Beckman Coulter DxH 560 and HORIBA Yumizen H550 in Patients With Abnormal Blood Counts. International Journal of Laboratory Hematology, 2026; 0:1–8. DOWNLOAD PDF
