Objectives: Two characteristic peripheral blood smear findings of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) are lymphocytosis and many smudge cells. Excluding smudge cells from manual differential (MDIFF), a common laboratory practice, yields unreliable results and consequently necessitates MDIFF on an albumenized blood smear. Since smudge cells represent remnants of fragile lymphoid cells, we sought to (1) test the hypothesis that reliable MDIFF results can be obtained from the

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... nized blood smear by including smudge cells and counting them as lymphocytes, and (2) confirm our previously reported finding that automated differential (ADIFF) results are also acceptable in these patients. Methods: We compared corresponding results of MDIFFs on non-albumenized smears vs MDIFFs on albumenized smears (Group A, n ¼ 82), ADIFFs vs MDIFFs on albumenized smears (Group B, n ¼ 50), and ADIFF vs MDIFFs on AJCP / MEETING ABSTRACTS S70 Am J Clin Pathol 2016;146:S62-S81