On Friday I posted a picture of a strange cell and asked for suggestions as to what it might be. I also mentioned about this blog entry on a pathology mailing list to which I subscribe. I cannot believe the response I have had, Normally this blog receives about dozen visits a day. On Friday it got thirty visits, on Saturday it got two hundred and seventy seven visits, on Sunday it got seventy three visits, and there have been one hundred and nine visits today (so far).
Furthermore the picture has been reposted on another blog and people have posted comments there too. In total I have received over thirty responses as to what the cell might be.
I don’t want to be dismissive of anyone’s suggestions, but some of the comments I’ve received aren’t very likely. Whilst the cell is definitely a white cell of some sort, it is certainly not an eosinophil or a basophil.
The most likely suggestions include:
- lymphocyte with cleaved nucleus, and cytoplasmic pseudopods
- micromegakaryocyte
- binucleated lymphocyte with cytoplasmic fragments
- degenerate cell.
There was only the one cell like it – we couldn’t find any others. A lot of people gave the sage advice that if there’s only one oddity then it can be ignored. Which is what we’ve actually done in practice.
But it would have been nice to have known what the thing was….
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