Evaluation of Single and Dual Platforms for CD4 and CD8 T-Lymphocyte Count among HIV Patients
Authors
HAYTHAM DAHLAWI
Abstract
HIV is a major problem worldwide affecting thousands of people each year. CD4 T cells and CD8 T cells counts are important factors for assessment immune system and monitoring and management immune status of HIV-infected people. The main methodologies available for absolute CD4 T cells and CD8 T cells analysis are the dual-platform and single-platform. Studies demonstrated grater performance by singleplatform method laboratories on percentage of T-cell subset percentage for accuracy and measurements for precision However, some dual-platform method laboratories outperformed all single-platform method laboratories on percentages of T-cell subset in other studies. Therefore, the goal of this study is to identify whether or not it is necessary to change from dual-platform to single-platform techniques by determine the variation of relative counts for CD4 T cells and CD8 T cells Data set consists of 85 HIV patients have been studies. Two methods have been compared to indicate CD4 T cells to CD8 T cells counts, dual-platform method using hematology analyzer to estimate absolute lymphocyte count and the percentage of CD4 T cells among lymphocytes obtained from flow cytometry and single-platform method enables absolute CD4 T cell counts to be measured by flow cytometry directly. This study showed statistically significant differences between the single-platform and dual-platform technology in favor of single-platform. The percentage of differences in CD4 and CD8 values between methods were 8% and 10% and somehow similar trend was noticed for each of CD4 single- and dual-platform as well as CD8 single- and dualplatform when it comes to parallel coordinates comparisons. Our study suggesting a major disadvantage of dual-platform method might be error in each independent measurement affecting each following step in the T- cell calculation values. While high precision in single-platform method is due to depending only on performance of one measurement. However, further investigations and studies are required to compare the accuracy and precision of both techniques.
Keywords: Patients, HIV, CD4 T Cells, CD8 T Cells, Dual-platform, Single-platform.