Cell Counter: How it Plays a Role with Medical Lab Technicians?

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In the microscopic world of blood and tissue, every good tool available is used to make the medical lab technician’s life as easy as possible. This job is stressful and there is little room for error. With all the high technology and extreme equipment available, however, sometimes the simplest gadget makes a wonderful difference.

Microscopic Slide Cell Counters

When counting cells on a microscope slide, an old faithful cell counter has been around a long time. These helpful trinkets are usually the result of a frustrated lab technician who needed the right tools to make right assessment. And so, necessity invents what it needs. A counting chamber, also known as a hemocytometer, is a microscope slide that is especially designed to enable cell counting. The slide has a sink in its middle; the area of the sink is marked with a grid.

Spectrophotometer

This instrument works by passing light beams through a specimen, shining the results of cell count out onto a “reader” which is able to determine how many cells are in a particular amount of medium. Light intensity is measured by simply passing light through a blank sample. Next the light intensity is measured by passing through a sample. This will give indication via the reader of what the actual cell count is.

Electrical Resistance

There are many cell counters available today with new technology. Not only can some of them count “cells,” but also some cell counters can count particular “types” of cells, therefore differentiating one type from another. A Coulter Counter may be used not only to count cells, but also their volume. This is indicative of the osmotic ability of cells, which is helpful when diagnosing certain types of diseases.

Flow Cytometry

Possibly, the most accurate and definitely the most expensive way to count cells today is flow cytometry. Cells are passed through a narrow passageway in front of a laser beam. The laser detects via light passage how many cells are moving through.

Image Analysis

Using algorithms, high quality microscopic images can also be assessed for accurate cell counts. When allowing for error statistics, these image analyses can be used to make quick appraisal of some types of cell counts.

Advantages

For the medical lab technicians, the cell counters make life much easier than having to go to a grid on a microscope and give a rounded estimation of how many cells are well. With the movement of fluids and specimens through these counters, technology had rescued the eyes of lab workers and put to rest the guesswork of these procedures. This makes diagnostic lab testing much more efficient and patients definitely reap great benefits from these testing modes. They can also be easily repeated once the baseline is set. Once the lab technician is familiar with equipment, how to utilize it properly and how to troubleshoot, equipment like cell counters can become the most types of equipment for timely outcomes, accurate assessments, and confident diagnoses.

Remember these facts as you build a career as a lab technician.