Comparison of Blood Smear Staining Between Standard Conventional Method and Modified Rapid Staining

Abstract

Clinical microscopy laboratories routinely use Wright-Giemsa stain to stain blood smear for complete blood count (CBC) analysis. Since Wright Giemsa stain preparation is time consumed with limited availability, commercial stain kits have been used with various staining procedures.  It is a responsibility of the laboratories to choose qualified ready-made staining kits and make sure that they give a high staining quality. As various staining kits are provided with variety of staining procedures it is necessary to optimize the staining steps. The objective of the study was to evaluate blood smear staining quality scores between conventional and modified rapid staining methods. One hundred and thirty blood smear samples were stained by using conventional and modified rapid staining in duplication. All stained blood smears were evaluated under microscope and given the efficacy of staining scores in range of 1-5 points by two qualified medical technologists. Paired samples t-test was used to compare the efficacy of staining methods. The efficacy score comparison of the two blood smear staining methods was found to be significantly different (p<0.05). The mean scores of conventional method and modified rapid method were 4.94±0.23 points and 4.98±0.13 points, respectively. Moreover, modified rapid staining only took 3 minutes 31 seconds to complete the staining steps as compared to 10 minutes 30 seconds for conventional method. In conclusion, the modified rapid staining method could be applied in routine CBC work due to the simplicity of the procedure, fastness, low cost and high quality.