Evaluation of an automated digital imaging system, Nextslide Digital Review Network, for examination of peripheral blood smears.

Context: Several automated digital imaging systems have been introduced in recent years to improve turnaround time and proficiency in examining peripheral blood smears in hematology laboratories.

Objective: To evaluate a new automated digital imaging system, Nextslide Digital Review Network (Nextslide), for examination of peripheral blood smears.

Design: We evaluated 479 peripheral blood smears, of which 247 (51.6%) were included for comparison of Nextslide and manual white blood cell differential counts and morphology evaluation, 204 (42.6%) were included for comparison of Nextslide and CellaVision (DM96) differential counts, and 28 (5.8%) were neonatal samples examined for enumeration of nucleated red blood cells.

Results: Results from both method comparisons showed excellent correlation for all major white blood cell classes with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.70 to 0.99. Evaluation of white blood cell, red blood cell, and platelet morphology also showed good correlation among methods. White blood cell preclassification capability in the system was evaluated for rate and accuracy. Leukopenic samples demonstrated markedly decreased review time with Nextslide. Enumeration of nucleated red blood cells showed good correlation among methods.

Conclusions: Our evaluation of Nextslide shows excellent correlation when compared with conventional manual differentials and CellaVision (DM96) differentials for evaluation of peripheral blood smears.