Analyzing Reticulocytes

A method of analyzing a blood sample, comprising:

• exposing the blood sample to a ghosting reagent to remove hemoglobin from red blood cells, thereby generating a ghosted blood sample;
• measuring the ghosted blood sample in a flow cell by a detection comprising an axial light loss measurement to generate event data;
• identifying a hard-to-ghost cell population using the event data, based on said axial light loss measurement;
• filtering-out the hard-to-ghost cell population from said event data;
• and
• analyzing the event data without the hard-to-ghost cell population to identify blood cell distribution patterns.

A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having control logic stored therein for causing a computer to analyze a blood sample using a flow cytometer, said control logic comprising:

• a first computer readable program code that enables measuring the blood sample in a flow cell by a detection comprising a reticulocyte-maturity measurement and a light scatter measurement;
• a second computer readable program code that enables analyzing blood cell distribution patterns obtained from measuring said blood sample to identify a set of reticulocyte events corresponding to a population of reticulocytes;
• a third computer readable program code that enables differentiating immature reticulocytes from mature reticulocytes using the reticulocyte-maturity measurement and the light scatter measurement;
• and
• a fourth computer readable program code that enables reporting immature reticulocytes in the blood sample.

A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having control logic stored therein for causing a computer to analyze a blood sample using a flow cytometer, said control logic comprising:

• a first computer readable program code that enables measuring the blood sample in a flow cell by a detection comprising an axial light loss measurement to generate event data;
• a second computer readable program code that enables identifying a hard-to-ghost cell population from the event data based on said axial light loss measurement;
• a third computer readable program code that enables filtering-out the hard-to-ghost cell population from said event data to generate filtered event data;
• and
• a fourth computer readable program code that enables analyzing the filtered event data to identify blood cell distribution patterns.

An apparatus for analyzing a blood sample, comprising:

• a particle analyzer;
• a reticulocyte module, and;
• a display device,
• wherein the flow cytometer is coupled with the reticulocyte module, wherein the display device is coupled with the reticulocyte module, and wherein the reticulocyte module includes:
• a detector module that enables measuring the blood sample in a flow cell by a detection comprising a reticulocyte-maturity measurement and a light scatter measurement;
• an analyzer module that enables analyzing blood cell distribution patterns obtained from measuring said sample to identify a set of events corresponding to a population of reticulocytes;
• a differentiator module that enables differentiating immature reticulocytes from mature reticulocytes using the reticulocyte-maturity measurement and the light scatter measurement;
• and
• a reporter module that enables reporting immature reticulocytes in the blood sample.