Peripheral blood morphology review and diagnostic proficiency evaluation by a new Spanish EQAS during the period 2011-2019

Introduction: The Spanish Haematology and Haemotherapy Society organizes peripheral blood smear review scheme, focused on the evaluation of diagnostic proficiency of participants by blood cell morphology analysis. The objective was to evaluate the efficacy of this scheme as an educational tool to improve the diagnostic proficiency of the participants.

Methods: During 2011-2019, 54 peripheral blood smears, alongside with patient details such as age, sex, blood cell counts and relevant clinical information, were sent to an average of 125 ± 13 laboratories per year. A number of 44 shipments were selected to analyse whether successive surveys of the same disease may lead to an improvement in the diagnostic success rate proposed by the laboratories. Participants were asked to select the most relevant morphological abnormalities, alongside the diagnostic orientation. Agreement of participant responses with RR was evaluated.

Results: Spanish laboratories showed a diagnostic proficiency greater than 80% in acute myeloid leukaemia, including acute promyelocytic leukaemia, mature B-cell neoplasms (hairy cell leukaemia and splenic marginal zone lymphoma), chronic myeloid leukaemia, sickle cell disease, Bernard-Soulier syndrome and infectious mononucleosis. It was important to note the significant improvement over the time in the successive shipments of the same disease, with a 31% and 13% increase in their diagnostic orientation success rate for acute myeloid leukaemia and acute promyelocytic leukaemia cases, respectively, 15% for mantle cell lymphoma and 6% for sickle cell disease.

Conclusions: The present study provides evidence that peripheral blood smear review scheme can be a valid educational tool to improve the clinical pathologist skills in blood morphology and haematological diagnosis.