Age- and Sex-Matched Normal Leukocyte Subset Ranges in the General Population Defined with the EuroFlow Lymphocyte Screening Tube (LST) for Monoclonal B-Cell Lymphocytosis (MBL) vs. Non-MBL Subjects

Ignacio Criado; Wendy G Nieto; Guillermo Oliva-Ariza; Blanca Fuentes-Herrero; Cristina Teodosio; Quentin Lecrevisse; Antonio Lopez; Alfonso Romero; Julia Almeida; Alberto Orfao; The Primary Health Care Group Of Salamanca For The Study Of Mbl

doi:10.3390/cancers15010058

Age- and Sex-Matched Normal Leukocyte Subset Ranges in the General Population Defined with the EuroFlow Lymphocyte Screening Tube (LST) for Monoclonal B-Cell Lymphocytosis (MBL) vs. Non-MBL Subjects

Cancers (Basel). 2022 Dec 22;15(1):58. doi: 10.3390/cancers15010058.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Translational and Clinical Research Program, Centro de Investigación del Cáncer (IBMCC; CSIC-Universidad de Salamanca); Cytometry Service, NUCLEUS; Departamento de Medicina, Universidad de Salamanca (https://ror.org/02f40zc51) and Institute of Biomedical Research of Salamanca (IBSAL), 37007 Salamanca, Spain.
² Biomedical Research Networking Centre Consortium of Oncology (CIBERONC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain.
³ Centro de Atención Primaria de Salud Miguel Armijo, Sanidad de Castilla y León (SACyL), 37007 Salamanca, Spain.

Abstract

Reference ranges of blood-circulating leukocyte populations by, e.g., age and sex, are required for monitoring immune-cell kinetics. Most previous reports in which flow cytometry has been used to define the reference ranges for leukocyte counts included a limited number of donors and/or cell populations and/or did not consider age and sex simultaneously. Moreover, other factors not previously considered in the definition of normal ranges, such as the presence of chronic-lymphocytic-leukemia (CLL)-like low-count monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (MBLlo), might also be associated with an altered distribution of leukocytes in blood in association with an immunodeficiency and increased risk of infection and cancer. Here, we established reference cell-count ranges for the major populations of leukocytes in blood of non-MBL and MBLlo adult Caucasians matched by age and sex using the EuroFlow Lymphocyte Screening Tube (LST). A total of 706 Caucasian adult donors—622 non-MBL and 84 MBLlo—were recruited from the general population. Among non-MBL donors, the total leukocyte, neutrophil, basophil dendritic cell and monocyte counts remained stable through adulthood, while the absolute numbers of T- and B-cell populations and plasma cells decreased with age. The number of eosinophils and NK-cell increased over time, with clear differences according to sex for certain age ranges. In MBLlo subjects, few differences in the absolute cell counts by age (vs. non-MBL) were observed, and MBLlo men and women showed similar trends to non-MBL subjects except for the B-cell count drop observed in >70 y-men, which was more pronounced in MBLlo vs. non-MBL controls. Building robust age- and sex-matched reference ranges for the most relevant immune-cell populations in the blood of non-MBL donors is essential to appropriately identify an altered immune status in different clinical settings and highlight the altered immune-cell profiles of MBLlo subjects.

Keywords: EuroFlow; age; blood; flow cytometry; leukocyte subsets; lymphocyte screening tube (LST); monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (MBL); normal cells; reference ranges; sex.

Abstract

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