30 March 2025 (Sunday) - Slide Saturday Challenge

Spherocytes – a result of either a hereditary issue with the red cell membrane, or of membrane loss due to a haemolytic process.

I got it right… but not by guessing correctly.

 

I really should get off that high horse about “guessing”. I’m sure that whoever is writing these little exercises doesn’t mean that people should take pot luck in choosing an answer. They are giving me a useful bit of CPD for free… and all I can do is find fault with their choice of words. 

27 March 2025 (Thursday) - Another ASH Update

The nice people at the American Society of Hematology sent their update today. It is very clinical, and arguably not that relevant to what I do on a daily basis… but it is invaluable background reading.

 

26 March 2025 (Wednesday) - ASH Update

The latest update came in from ASH today. Much of it was clinical and went over my head, but…Arsenic to treat leukemia?  It would seem it works with nearly one hundred per cent success with relapsed acute promyelocytic leukemia.

23 March 2025 (Sunday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

“er indoors ^TM” is asleep on the sofa. I’m a bit bored… time for a BTLP-TACT exercise. I was presented with one case – a sixty-seven year-old chap requiring group & save.

 

He grouped as O Rh(D) Positive with antibody screen positive in cells 1 and 3. I performed antibody panels.

The IAT panel was positive in cells 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10. This corresponded with anti-s but didn’t exclude anti-Cw or anti-Kp(a). But the enzyme panel was negative in all cells which did exclude anti-Cw and anti-Kp(a)

 

I got the green light.

23 March 2025 (Sunday) - Not a Hairy Cell

ASH Education’s Slide Saturday Challenge was a giant platelet. It wasn’t a hairy cell as some of the people posting answers would arrogantly have had us believe. When the authors of the post asked “Did you guess correctly” they weren’t joking, were they?

It bothers me that there are those who post to these Facebook groups with such certainty but are completely wrong. It just goes to show that you really should be very careful about who you listen to on-line and who you should ignore.

21 March 2025 (Friday) - Reticulocytes

The nice people at Lablogatory sent their update today – some case studies based on reticulocyte scattergrams. In theory this sort of thing is an invaluable diagnostic tool. In practice the computer systems of most labs aren’t up to dealing with the graphical information the scattergrams provide.

18 March 2025 (Tuesday) - Westgard QC Update

The Westgard QC update arrived in my in-box this morning. It was rather hard-going, but it usually is. But it’s stuff which is (usually) pretty much directly applicable to what I do on a daily basis.

Here’s a warning about warnings… makes you think, doesn’t it?