Comparative study of the efficacy of Wright-Giemsa stain and Liu's stain in the detection of Auer rods in acute promyelocytic leukemia

In view of the importance of Auer rods in the rapid diagnosis of acute promyelocytic leukemia, we compared the results of Wright-Giemsa stain and Liu's stain (a rapid and simple stain, which is also a kind of modified Romanowsky stain) in the detection of Auer rods. This study was based on 53 cases of acute promyelocytic leukemia. Two staining methods were respectively performed on the bone marrow smears of these cases, and presence of Auer rods as well as nuclear features, cytoplasmic features and the degree of granularity of the cytoplasm were compared in each case. Our results showed that the occurrence of Auer rods as well as faggots in leukemic promyelocytes were significantly higher under Liu's stain than under Wright-Giemsa stain. Significant differences also existed in the occurrence of hypergranular cells and cytoplasmic protrusions between smears stained with Liu's stain and Wright-Giemsa stain. Liu's stain is important for the rapid diagnosis of suspicious APL, especially in recognizing Auer rods.