Electronic Platelet Counting

Abstract

A technique for electronic platelet counting is described. The erythrocytes in whole blood were removed by sedimentation at 1 × g in a two-phase system, using dextran as the erythrocyte-aggregating agent. The platelets in the plasma layer were counted electronically. By means of the haematocrit value, the plasma platelet count was converted to whole blood platelet count, which corresponded well with the microscope count. At low platelet numbers, corrections must be made for contaminating erythrocytes and leucocytes. At low platelet numbers, both microscope counts and celloscope counts became inaccurate. For the use of electronic counting in clinical medicine, this difficulty can easily be avoided by reducing the degree of dilution.

Key Words:

• Electronic counting
• platelets