12 November 2026 (Thursday) - Horiba Update

The nice people at Horiba sent their update today. You can read it by clicking here.

There was a very good review of the diagnosis of AML… and then a frankly wrong bit of advice about dealing with platelet clumping.

Given a numerically very low platelet count and a blood film showing a normal platelet count albeit with platelets appearing clumped you should not report the numerically very low platelet count. There’s two reasons for this. The numerically very low platelet count is clearly wrong and misleading, and the numerically very low platelet count is clearly wrong and misleading. OK, that’s the same reason, but it is so important I thought I should say it twice.

Given platelet clumping with what can clearly be seen to be an adequate platelet count one should report it as “platelets are clumped but appear to be present in normal numbers” (or something along those lines) and then ask for a sample collected into a different anticoagulant. Reporting a frankly wrong platelet count can easily lead to unnecessary, unwarranted (and potentially dangerous) outcomes.

 

There’s a lesson to be learned here… This is from an official update from a respected source. Even the best of us can make mistakes.