Introduction
Flow cytometry is a complex technology that is increasingly being used
by clinicians to improve the quality of health care. In order to
minimize artifacts and assure accuracy, rapid and simple quality
control methods are critical for effective use of the technology in the
clinical setting. Most clinical flow cytometric assays involve the
acquisition of data from several tubes in order to accommodate many
markers or stimulation conditions.
A common method of analysis involves the establishment of gates, based
on parameters common to all tubes that can be uniformly applied across
the entire panel, thus providing a basis for consistent population
identification and minimizing time and effort in the data analysis
process (e.g CD45/Side Scatter for Leukemia/Lymphoma
immunophenotyping). The underlying assumption is that events are
distributed the same way for each tube across the gating
parameters. Violations of this assumption due to unanticipated
and undetected shifts or other acquisition irregularities result in
inaccurate phenotyping, potentially leading to inaccurate diagnosis.
