Then, there is a request for differential diagnoses and focus specifications, followed by a fourth page showing diagnostic procedures that are needed for the specific focus.
Furthermore, the number of false positive alerts – e.g. specimens with requested manual differential, but an absence of morphological changes or left shift – is fairly low in dog samples (13%).
The percentage of requested manual differentials and underlying causes were determined separately for dogs, cats and horses.
The user can request a specific differential expression operation by selecting desired inputs.
In all species, the main reason for requesting a manual differential was the suspicion of a left shift (Table 2).
Causes for request of a manual differential were verified and classified into four different categories (Table 1).
Therefore, the aim of our study was to determine the rates of and reasons for manual leukocyte differentials in our laboratory based on defined criteria for request of manual leukocyte differentials.
In other cases the patient might be known to have an inflammatory spondyloarthropathy and imaging is requested to narrow the differential diagnosis, e.g. psoriatic spondyloarthropathy versus classical ankylosing spondylitis.
In 21% of canine, 32% of feline and 20% of equine samples, a manual differential was requested.
It is notable that, in our study, a manual differential was requested in 32% of feline samples but only in about 20% of canine and equine samples.
