Measurement of Blood Lipids using Flow Cytometry and Spectrophotometry

Sammanfattning

Hematology analyzers can be used for screening patients for blood abnor-malities. The techniques used in a hematology analyzer include impedanceanalysis, flow cytometry and spectroscopy, which allow for measuring of forexample absolute count, sizes and concentration of different cells in a patient’sblood sample. Hyperlipidemia, which refers to elevated blood lipid levels, isthe primary cause of heart-related illness and fatalities in today’s developedor developing countries. Currently, blood lipid levels are not measured as aparameter with hematology analyzers. Since hematology analyzers allow for arapid general screening of blood parameters, an area of interest is therefore tobe able to measure blood lipids with a hematology analyzer. Thus, this studyaims to investigate the possibility of detecting and measuring blood lipids witha hematology analyzer, using flow cytometry and/or spectrophotometry. In order to investigate this possibility, two simulating methods were conductedwhere in the first method Intralipid 20% was mixed with saline into sampleswith different lipid concentrations. In the second method, diluent wasused instead of saline. Lastly a Correlation study was performed whereIntralipid 20% was mixed with donor blood to prepare samples with differentlipid concentrations. All samples were then analyzed in a hematologyanalyser and scatter plots from flow cytometry and light absorption datafrom spectrophotometry measurements were obtained. The methods showedthat there is a strong correlation between number of detected pulse countsfrom the scatter plots and lipid concentration. Same applies to lightabsorption compared to the lipid concentration of the samples, measured withspectrophotometry. The results from this study show that it is in fact possible to detect andmeasure blood lipid levels with a hematology analyser using flow cytometryand spectrophotometry. Further development within this area could thereforeenable simple screening of this additional parameter and early detection ofindications of hyperlipidemia.