22 December 2025 (Monday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

I had hoped for a Learning Monday thingy today, but clearly they’ve packed up for the holidays. I did a morphology quiz instead, and then did another BTLP-TACT exercise.

 

I was presented with one case – a forty-three year-old woman in the ante-natal clinic needing group and antibody screen.

She grouped as A Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen

 

I got it right.

22 December 2025 (Monday) - Morphology Quiz

 

I had hoped for a Learning Monday thingy today, but clearly they’ve packed up for the holidays. I did a morphology quiz instead…

21 December 2025 (Sunday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

Time for another BTLP-TACT exercise. I was presented with two cases:

 

40635 – a ninety-three year-old woman who having had a CVA needed group and save.She grouped as O Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen.

87793 – a nine month old child with epistaxis also needing group and save.He grouped as A Rh(D) Positive, albeit with weak reaction in the anti-D. I called that indeterminate as that’s what the software wanted last time.

He too had a negative antibody screen

 

I got it right

19 December 2025 (Friday) - Unexpected Thrombocytopenia

Temozolomide is a drug commonly used to treat brain tumours. One of it’s less common side effects is that it can cause thrombocytopenia.

Which would explain why a patient’s platelet count dropped massively…

17 December 2025 (Wednesday) - Westgard QC Update

 

The nice people at Westgard QG sent their update today. You can read it by clicking here. As always it is rather heavy going, but one article made me think. A range of haematology analysers that are quite popular in the far east have been shown to have “significant imprecision problems”. You automatically assume that the manufacturers have sorted this sort of thing don’t you?

No?

Well I do…

16 December 2025 (Tuesday) - On-Line Morphology Quiz

Being at a loose end I did an on-line morphology quiz.
I got full marks…

16 December 2025 (Tuesday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

Time for another BTLP-TACT exercise… I’ve had an email telling me I’m not doing enough…

I was presented with two cases:

 

64442 – a thirty-eight year-old woman with a fractured femur needing two units of blood.

She grouped as O Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen. I selected two units of O Rh(D) Positive K negative blood

 

33268 – a thirty-one year-old woman in A&E needing six units of blood for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

She grouped as A Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen. I selected six units of A Rh(D) Positive K negative blood

 

I got the thumbs-up.