Department of Neurology, Erasmus University Medical Center, 's-Gravendijkwal 230, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Cytometry B Clin Cytom. 2011 Sep;80(5):271-81. doi: 10.1002/cyto.b.20603. Epub 2011 May 12.
Flow cytometry facilitates the detection of a large spectrum of cellular characteristics on a per cell basis, determination of absolute cell numbers and detection of rare events with high sensitivity and specificity. White blood cell (WBC) counts in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) are important for the diagnosis of many neurological disorders. WBC counting and differential can be performed by microscopy, hematology analyzers, or flow cytometry. Flow cytometry of CSF is increasingly being considered as the method of choice in patients suspected of leptomeningeal localization of hematological malignancies. Additionally, in several neuroinflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis and paraneoplastic neurological syndromes, flow cytometry is commonly performed to obtain insight into the immunopathogenesis of these diseases. Technically, the low cellularity of CSF samples, combined with the rapidly declining WBC viability, makes CSF flow cytometry challenging. Comparison of flow cytometry with microscopic and molecular techniques shows that each technique has its own advantages and is ideally combined. We expect that increasing the number of flow cytometric parameters that can be simultaneously studied within one sample, will further refine the information on CSF cell subsets in low-cellular CSF samples and enable to define cell populations more accurately.
流式细胞术可在单细胞基础上检测到大量细胞特征，确定绝对细胞数量，并以高灵敏度和特异性检测稀有事件。脑脊液 (CSF) 中的白细胞 (WBC) 计数对许多神经疾病的诊断很重要。WBC 计数和分类可通过显微镜、血液学分析仪或流式细胞术进行。在怀疑血液系统恶性肿瘤累及软脑膜的患者中，流式细胞术越来越被认为是首选方法。此外，在多发性硬化症和副肿瘤性神经综合征等几种神经炎症性疾病中，通常进行流式细胞术以深入了解这些疾病的免疫发病机制。从技术上讲，CSF 样本的细胞数量低，加上 WBC 活力迅速下降，使得 CSF 流式细胞术具有挑战性。流式细胞术与显微镜和分子技术的比较表明，每种技术都有其自身的优势，理想情况下可以结合使用。我们预计，增加可在一个样本中同时研究的流式细胞术参数数量，将进一步细化低细胞 CSF 样本中 CSF 细胞亚群的信息，并能够更准确地定义细胞群。
