Application of Laser Scanning Cytometry to Clinical and Laboratory Hematology

Morphological diagnosis by May-Gruenwald-Giemsa (MGG) staining is an essential method in clinical and laboratory hematology. In addition, the detection of chromosomal aberration by G-band methods, the phenotyping of surface markers by Flowcytometry (FCM) or genetic diagnosis by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and Southern blotting are important approaches to facilitate the establishment of a definitive diagnosis. These methods are found to be much more useful for the diagnosis of specific diseases showing characteristic abnormalities on cytogenetics including acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with RUNX1-RUNX1T1 or PMLRARA and chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), BCR-ABL1 positivity and other such diseases etc (Arber et al, 2008, Vardiman et al, 2008). However, there are few methods other than morphological diagnosis that are described as effective for heterogenous populations comprising the majority of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), the detection of minimal residual diseases and the discrimination of cases showing slight dysplasia. Therefore, it is necessary to establish an effective technique of collecting other information.