Leukocyte stability in hemogram samples waiting at room temperature

INTRODUCTION: Management of preanalytical, analytical and post-analytic processes is essential to obtain reliable results in clinical biochemistry laboratories. One of the most significant of these processes is ensuring sample stability. In this study, we aimed to evaluate hourly changes of leukocyte parameters at room temperature for 24 hours.
METHODS: In this study, 30 randomly selected hemogram samples from Kocaeli University Faculty of Medicine Central Laboratory were included. These samples were analyzed on the Beckman Coulter Unicel DXH 800 analyzer (Beckman Coulter, Miami, FL) immediately after being admitted to the laboratory (0. hour) and after waiting for 2, 4, 8, 24 hours in the room (23-25°C), the results were repeated again. In this study, leukocyte, lymphocyte, basophil, neutrophil, monocyte, eosinophil parameters were evaluated using the GraphPad Prism 6 program. The values were expressed as mean±Standard deviation (SD). P<0.05 was used for statistical significance.
RESULTS: A statistically significant difference was observed in the levels of leukocyte, lymphocyte, basophil, neutrophil and monocyte parameters. No significant difference was observed in eosinophil levels. The findings showed that the earliest increase occurred in neutrophil and lymphocyte values at the 2nd hour (p<0.001). An increase in the 4th-hour measurements was observed in basophil and monocyte levels (p<0.001).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Our study showed that leukocyte subparameters, neutrophils and lymphocytes were the earliest affected parameters. Our findings suggest that when the waiting times of hemogram samples exceed two hours, the results will not be reliable concerning leukocyte parameters.