Development and Prospective Validation of a Standardized Flow Cytometric Assay of Peripheral Blood Neutrophil Myeloperoxidase Expression for Ruling Out Myelodysplastic Syndromes.

"Flow cytometry analysis of neutrophil myeloperoxidase expression in peripheral blood samples will be performed within 24 h of MDS diagnostic evaluation and blinded to the reference standard. Peripheral blood samples will be collected in 5 ml (EDTA) anticoagulant plastic tubes and processed within 24 h maximum of collection.~Blood sample will be stained according to the manufacturers' recommendations with a lyophilized cocktail (LyotubeTM ready-to-use, BD Bioscience).~At least 10,000 neutrophils will be acquired on a 3-laser, 8-color BD FACSCanto-II TM flow cytometer (BD Biosciences, San José, CA).~Each marker will be expressed as median, geometric and arithmetic mean, regular and robust coefficient of variation."