Abstract:

Objective To monitor the change of reticulocyte（RET）count during chemotherapy for cancer patients,and evaluate RET count as an early indicator of bone marrow arrest and recovery. Methods Twenty-one d is a treatment cycle of chemotherapy for all cancer patients in this study,while the 0th day was defined as pre-chemotherapy,chemotherapy was conducted on the 1st day to 3rd day,and the 7th day to 21st day were as post-chemotherapy. RET percentages （RET%） of 48 cancer patients before and after chemotherapy were determined by SYSMEX XE-4000 automatic hematology analyzer （XE-4000）,and compared with traditional manual counting for RET. Red blood cell（RBC）and white blood cell（WBC）counts were determined. These 48 cancer patients were classified into 2 groups according to RET% on the 10th day,high-elevated RET group （RET% increased≥25%）and low-elevated RET group （RET% increased <25%）. The changes of RBC and WBC counts between the 2 groups were analyzed. Results RET% by XE-4000 was in accordance with that by manual counting. Since bone marrow arrest occurred after chemotherapy,RBC count,WBC count and RET% on the 7th and 10th day were lower than those before chemotherapy（P<0.05）. RBC count increased with the elevation of RET%,especially on the 21st day,which was higher than that before chemotherapy（P<0.05）. Although RET count increased on the 21st day,there was no statistical significance in low-elevated RET group（P>0.05）. In high-elevated RET group,WBC count increased and fluctuated significantly during bone marrow recovery,and then RBC count increased. In contrast to high-elevated RET group,WBC count in low-elevated RET group increased later,along with slight change in RBC count. Conclusions RET count might act as an early indicator of bone marrow arrest and recovery after chemotherapy.

Key words: Reticulocytes, Red blood cells, White blood cells, Neoplasms, Chemotherapy