COMPARISON OF ESR VALUES MEASURED BY AUTOMATED AND MANUAL METHODS

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Erythrocytes sedimentation rate at which red blood cells in whole blood descend in a standarisedtube in a period of one hour. ESR ia a very useful investigation in assessing diagnostic and prognostic aspect of the disease. It is used in the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases .

The aimof the study is to compare between ESR values measured by automated and manualmethods.

The present study was done in a tertiary care center at Saveetha Medical  College

MATERIALS AND METHOD

This is a retrospective study which was carried out in haematology lab of Saveetha Medical College and Hospital Chennai. The ESR values of hundred patients were compared .

The manual method used in our hospital is Westergren method(9). In this method  2ml of venous blood is collected in a tube containing 0.5 ml of sodium citrate. Then the tube is placed vertically for one hour. The values are measured in millimetres in 1 hour.

 The automated analyser used is Roller 20 [ code SI R20 LC].The principle of thisanalyser is photometrical capillary stopped flow kinetic analysis.

Given in mm/hr. Range – 2 to120 mm/hr.

RESULT

The mean of ESR calculated from the values obtained by manual method is 37.34.

The mean of ESR calculated from the values obtained by  automated method was 31.91.

The mean of the ESR obtained frommanual methods were found to be higher than the values obtained fromautomated methods.

CONCLUSION

When the automated and manual ESR measuring methods were compared there was a marked discrepancy in the results regarding high ESR values. It was not the same for normal ESR values,which is unacceptable .Similar findings were noted by other researchers. Hence it

is required to use some correction methods(3)(2). Hence ESR is a very useful in the diagnosis of many infections,diseases, chronic inflammation.