V. VIETTE¹, J. MERÇAY<sup>1

1</sup>ADMED Laboratoires, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Manual microscopy for visual interpretation of urinary sediment is the gold standard and widely used around the world. However, since the last decade, the emergence and employment of automated methods have been constantly growing within clinical laboratories for their reliability and considerable gain of time. We compared 2 microscopy systems of automated urine analyzers: Iris IQ-200 (Beckman) composed by a laminar flow conjugated to a camera and UriSed (77 Elektronika Kft), centrifuging and dispatching samples under the microscope.
The visual interpretation of the sediment by manual microscopy is proceeded according to the European Urinalysis Guidelines (1). The analyzed parameters (in high power field) are classified in semi-quantitative ranges and compared (accurately or within one gap range) to manual procedure in order to calculate a percentage of coherence (%) for each analyzer. Time of procedure and maintenance were also recorded.
The % of coherence is widely better (goodness of fit non significant) with UriSed in the accurate range for red blood cells (RBC): 72vs52%, white blood cells (WBC): 74vs65% and squamous cells (EPI): 88vs78% and slightly better with IQ-200 for transitional and non-squamous cells (NEC): 85vs80%, hyaline (HYA): 92vs90% and pathological (PAT) cylinders: 96vs90%. Within one difference range, IQ-200 has a slightly advantage in % of coherence for all parameters. False positive results are for UriSed and IQ-200 respectively: RBC (5vs26%), WBC (8vs17%) and insignificant (<4%) for EPI, NEC, HYA and PAT. Samples are analyzed in approximately 2 minutes with UriSed and 5 with IQ-200. Total required time of maintenance per week is around 1h18 with UriSed and 3h16 with IQ-200.
UriSed is more accurate for some elements and IQ-200 for others. None of them can properly detect glomerular RBC; therefore manual procedure still is required. Both systems are of great utility when it comes to facilitating efficiency of samples handling and are more than welcome in any clinical laboratory. Nevertheless, none of them could totally replace manual microscopy.

1. European Confederation of Laboratory Medicine. Scand J Clin Lab Invest Suppl. 2000; 231:1- 86