Establishment of improved review criteria for hematology analyzers in cancer hospitals

BACKGROUND: Although hematologic review criteria for general hospitals have been established, they may be insufficient for cancer hospitals. This study aimed to establish the appropriate review criteria for hematology analyzers in cancer hospitals. METHODS: A total of 1003 samples from our hospital were randomly selected for blood smear preparation and microscopic review. The review criteria of the International Consensus Group for Hematology Review (ICGH) and Chinese consensus group were used to obtain the review, true‐negative (TN), true‐positive (TP), false‐negative (FN), and false‐positive (FP) rates, as well as the triggered rules. Our review criteria were established by comparing flag or numeric value information of TP and FP samples, adjusting rules to obtain better efficiency, a low slide review rate, and an acceptable FN rate. RESULTS: Overall, 197 (19.64%) samples showed positive smear findings. Compared to the ICGH criteria, the slide review rate of the newly established criteria declined from 51.25% to 39.28%, and the TP and TN rates increased from 17.85% and 46.06% to 23.13% and 55.83%, respectively. The FN rate of the newly established criteria was 3.69%. Another set of samples used to validate the newly established criteria yielded the review, FN, and FP rates as 33.49%, 1.86%, and 25.58%, respectively. CONCLUSION: The newly established review criteria for hematology analyzers enabled the prompt identification, smear, and further verification of doubtful specimens, without a significant increase in the workload, thus improving the efficiency of the review process. This study provided data support for other cancer hospitals to establish review criteria.