The Japanese Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards, Area Committee on Hematology, and Subcommittee on Flow Cytometry (the so-called JCCLS FCM-Working Group) has published three guideline documents for flow cytometry:, (1)“Guidelines for Performing Surface Antigen Analysis on Peripheral Lymphocytes using Flow Cytometry”(JCCLS H1-A V2.0), (2)“Guidelines for Performing Surface Antigen Analysis on Hematopoietic Malignant Cells”(JCCLS H2-P V1.0), and (3)“Guidelines for CD34+ Cell Determination by Flow Cytometry”(JCCLS H3-P V1.0). The first guideline has already been approved by JCCLS, and the Working Group is currently seeking public comments on the proposed CD34 guideline document. Common subjects among these flow cytometry tests, i.e., optimizing instrument settings, work procedures after data acquisition and analysis, maintaining instruments, and managing reagents, are only described in JCCLS H1-A V2.0, the earliest published guideline document. The latter two guideline documents contain subjects related to each application. These guidelines are useful in accurate clinical diagnosis by flow cytometry, particularly for assuring accuracy and precision of flow cytometry in clinical laboratories as well as minimizing interlaboratory imprecision in external Quality Control programs.
