Automated cerebrospinal fluid cytology: limitations and reasonable applications.

Abstract

When experienced personnel are not available, a preliminary cell count and differentiation between neutrophilic and lymphocytic reactions by automated cytometry may be valuable in allowing initial therapeutic decision making. Since the detection of pathologic cell types is not provided and the precision at low cell counts is only moderate, a personal microscopic evaluation of each sample is still indispensable to avoid misdiagnoses.