21 October 2019 (Monday) - A Misnomer? No!


Here's something that made me sit up and take notice. Look at this photo I took of a blood film I saw today...

  
And then I read the diagnosis... a known case of sickle cell disease. But the fact that a diagnosis has been made in no way detracts from the validity of this blood film for CPD purposes...

I found this particularly interesting because… well…  look at those sickle cells. When I was a trainee at a hospital on the south coast which has long since been bulldozed I was told (at great length) that the term “sickle cell” was a misnomer, and that you never see sickle cells on a blood film. I was told that you only see them when you artificially lower the oxygen concentrations by making sealed wet cell preparations (a technique which involved sticking diluted blood under a coverslip and sealing the coverslip in place with nail varnish).
But demonstrably here we have sickle cells. You have to wonder how these myths perpetrate themselves…

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