Conservative whole blood sample preparation technique

Abstract From the Canadian patent

A method for the rapid preparation of a whole blood sample for photooptical analysis. A whole blood sample lytic, reagent system and stain are contacted in a reaction vessel with gentle, asymmetric vortex mixing. This method conserves the endogenous constituents of the sample since, the preparation of the sample occurs within a common vessel and any excess, unconsumed or unreacted reagents, and stain are not separated from the sample during preparation, thus avoiding the multiple wash steps traditionally employed. The lytic agent preferably is acidic and stromatolyzes the erythrocyte fraction of the whole blood, leaving the leukocyte sub-populations in an unlysed, near native state. The …