2 April 2026 (Thursday) - NEQAS 2602 BF

I got the results of NEQAS morphology survey 2602BF today…

 

2602BF1 I said:

 

Hypochromia (consensus 4^th)

Target cells  (consensus 1^st)

Large plts (consensus 2^nd)

Neutropenia (consensus 14^th)

 

I wrote “? thal ? SC disease”. The expert opinion said: “These features are all suggestive of Hb SC disease and this was confirmed on HPLC though the degree of microcytosis should lead to the consideration of a coexistent alpha thalassemia trait”

 

 

2602BF2 I said:

 

Hypochromia (consensus 1^st)

Microcytosis (consensus 2nd)

Pencil cells (consensus 3^rd)

Tear drop cells (consensus 5^th)

^ plts (consensus 4^th)

 

I thought this was a case of iron deficiency. It was.

 

31 March 2026 (Tuesday) - IBMS Update

The IBMS sent their update today – you can read it by clicking here. I must admit I’m quite a critic of the IBMS but this was one of their better offerings.

I did like the article about infections in feature films… I was reminded of an episode nearly thirty years ago when I wrote to the BBC. A rather poor doctor in the TV show “Casualty”  was told that they would be lucky to end up in a path lab. The BBC replied saying that they were sorry for any offence caused, and they acknowledged that the average path lab worked is educated to postgraduate standards. But what they were striving for was dramatic effect.

Nothing has changed in the meantime…

 

30 March 2026 (Monday) - AML

Back in the day we’d just judge on what we saw down the microscope. Didn’t I comment on that the other day?

30 March 2026 (Monday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

I’ve had another email from the nice people at BTLP-TACT telling me that I’m not doing enough exercises. So here we go…

I was presented with one case – a fifty-seven year-old woman in the haematology out-patients clinic needing two units of blood.

 

She grouped as AB Rh(D) Positive but with a weak(ish) reaction in the D. I’d call that positive because she’s over fifty and it is positive, but BTLP-TACT don’t like that. So UI it is…  

The antibody screen was negative.

So… what do I issue?

Personally I’d have given AB Rh(D) Positive because she *is* AB Rh(D) Positive.

But having said the Rh(D) group is uninterpretable (even though it is) I should give Rh(D) Negative blood.

My question is that having said the Rh(D) group is uninterpretable, should I give O Rh(D) Negative (for no reason that I could actually fathom) rather than AB Rh(D) Negative?

 

There’s one way to find out… I went with two units of AB Rh(D) Negative

I got the green light.

30 March 2026 (Monday) - Transfusion Evidence Library Update

The nice people at the Transfusion Evidence Library sent their update today. As always there was so much as to boggle my poor brain, but the second to last article made me think. It is very easy to think that blood science is what I do, and that it probably happens in a few hospitals nearby.

It’s world-wide and what happens in other parts of the world can be very different. In over forty years I’ve only ever heard of one case of malaria being transmitted by blood transfusion… in some parts of Africa nearly one donor in five has malaria…

   ARTICLE OF THE MONTH

Preventive interventions for vasovagal reactions in whole blood donors: a cluster-randomised, stepped-wedge, crossover trial of 73 sites involving 1·4 million donors in England.
Kaptoge, S., et al. (2026). The Lancet. Haematology.
PICO SUMMARY

 

 

TOP ARTICLES

N-acetylcysteine reduces incidence and duration of linezolid-associated thrombocytopenia in critically ill patients: a randomized controlled trial.
Abdeltawab, M., et al. (2026). Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology.

Interventions to prevent intraventricular haemorrhage in preterm neonates: an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Bhanushali, M., et al. (2026). Neonatology. [Record in progress].            

Recombinant factor VIIa versus placebo for spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage within 2 h of symptom onset (FASTEST): a multicentre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial.
Broderick, J.P., et al. (2026). Lancet.

Antifibrinolytics (lysine analogues) for the prevention of bleeding in people with haematological disorders.
Champaneria, R., et al. (2026). The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Use of albumin in patients with hepatic encephalopathy: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies with trial sequential analysis.
Coan, A.C.C., et al. (2026). Hepatology Forum.

Comparative efficacy of prehospital resuscitation strategies on mortality for patients with major trauma: a network meta-analysis.
Hsu, C.W., et al. (2026). European Journal of Emergency. [Record in progress].

Randomized, sham-controlled trial of intraoperative ticagrelor removal to reduce perioperative bleeding.
Mack, M.J., et al. (2026). The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. [Record in progress].

Global burden of asymptomatic malaria among blood donors: systematic review and meta-analysis.
Malede, B., et al. (2026). BMC Infectious Diseases.

Comparison of safety and efficacy of liberal versus restrictive red blood cell transfusion thresholds on the quality of life in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Mandal, S., et al. (2026). Annals of Hematology.

29 March 2026 (Sunday) - Slide Saturday Challenge

Here’s some info on the condition. There are those who turn their noses up at Wikipedia… they can write their own CPD journals. Bet they won’t.

25 March 2026 (Tuesday) - Nil Desperandum

I had another little session testing the new works computer today. I had a *lot* of frustration with in. In retrospect it worked perfectly doing exactly what it should. The problem was “operator error”, but I learned a lot…

I think Lionel Jeffries summed it all up over fifty years ago…