For a long time it has been common
knowledge that “people of African origin” have lower neutrophil counts than
the general UK public. It would seem that this isn’t strictly true… it is actually
people with the Duffy-null phenotype.
New reference ranges have been drawn up for
neutrophil counts for these people. There’s an
article on it here.
However this begs the question of how do we
know where and when to apply this reference range? Should we be performing
Duffy phenotyping as part of a chronic neutropenia screen?
