Hematological tests can be used to help diagnose and monitor numerous blood-related conditions, including anemia, infections, and certain forms of cancer. Although manual microscopy is often considered the ultimate method for cellular and morphological analyses, automated hematology analyzers are routinely used for complete blood counts (CBC) and white blood cell (WBC) differentials in clinical laboratories. In addition, automated analyzers can provide much more information than a manual count.
Medonic M51 is a 5-part hematology analyzer from Boule Diagnostics (Figure 1). The analyzer provides information on 29 parameters—20 parameters for in vitro diagnostic (IVD) use and 9 parameters for research use (RUO) only—for the CBC, including red blood cells (RBC) and platelets (PLT), hemoglobin (HGB), and for the 5-part differential of white blood cells (WBC).