A Rapid, Quantitative Method to Characterize The Human Lymphocyte Concentration for Automated High-Throughput Radiation Biodosimetry.

We have developed a Quantitative Light Absorption Analysis (QLAA) method to rapidly estimate human lymphocyte concentrations isolated from small volumes of whole blood. Measurements of the light absorption analysis were calibrated for lymphocyte concentration levels using a hemocytometer. To validate the QLAA system, blood samples were collected from 17 healthy donors and lymphocyte absorption measurements were directly compared with the manual microscope counting. The results showed that lymphocyte measurements obtained using the QLAA system were comparable with the manually scored lymphocyte counts but with measurements taken in seconds.