Les difficultés d'Interprétation de l'immunophénotypage des populations lymphoïdes du sang

Immunophenotyping through flow cytometry undergoes many developments in haematology as well as in immunology. This very evolutive technique is not yet fully automated, and remains subject to numerous sources of error. These can be related to preanalytical steps, such as the conditionning of the sample or its delivery to the laboratory. Analytical steps potentially problematic are the processing of the sample, labelling or red cells lysis, and the analysis by the flow cytometer: the test will be readable only on correctly gated populations, if bearing on a sufficient amount of events, and using a flow cytometer adequately set through use of adequate controls. This ever evolving and little automated technique requires well educated and experimented technicians. Eventually, result interpretation shoud take into account the clinical set up and also the blood counts including cytologic examination of the blood smears, which are indeed necessary in this regard.