Hypochromic microcytic blood film with pronounces anisopoikilocytosis. Target cells and nucleated red cells. No pencil cells…
Thalassemia major…
This is (supposed to be) a reflective diary by a (not very) anonymous biomedical scientist who works somewhere in the south of England. One day this diary may well be submitted to the Health and Care Professions Council as evidence of ongoing continual professional development....
Showing posts with label Slide Saturday Challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Slide Saturday Challenge. Show all posts
19 July 2026 (Sunday) - Disagree (!)
Seriously? I always thought that platelets
were much larger in May-Hegglin anomaly.
Personally what with the rather echinocytic
red cells and the lack of distinct lobulation in the neutrophil I would have
said this was an example of a blood film having been made on an old blood
sample.
31 May 2026 (Sunday) - Slide Saturday Challenge
At first sight I agreed with the people who’d said it was some sort of haemoglobinopathy… OK there were target cells there. But in a haemoglobinopathy the red cells are a tad more uniform. These ones are all over the place. Massive anisopoikilocytosis with cell fragments, tear drop cells, spherocytes…
That’s some sort of microangiopathic haemolytic condition…
3 May 2026 (Sunday) - Slide Saturday Challenge
Flame cells… I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen them in real life…
19 April 2026 (Sunday) - I Got That Wrong...
I won’t lie… I thought it was hairy cell leukaemia. They do look similar, but are very different diseases. Flow cytometry comes into play… as the article says.
12 April 2026 (Sunday) - A Giant Platelet
Well, there’s a giant platelet but you get them in all sorts of
conditions.
Here’s a few words about Bernard-Soulier syndrome.
Here’s a few words about Bernard-Soulier syndrome.
5 April 2026 (Sunday) - Pay Attention (!)
Look closely in a blood film – it’s easy to overlook the early signs…
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.
22 March 2026 (Sunday) - Getting It Right
Well, I was confident that it was something malaria-ous and (quite
frankly) that’s good enough. I spotted the issue and was confident about
the next steps… tell the clinician and the London School of Tropical Medicine.
As for the species… I won’t say “that’s anyone’s guess” but I will
say “look at the last NEQAS parasitology result”. Out of nearly four
hundred and fifty participants, over ninety-nine point five per cent of the
participants saw something there that shouldn’t have been. However less than
half of the participants got the species right… I say “right”. Perhaps “agreed
with the expert opinion” might be a better phrasing.
I find myself thinking back to the good old days when leukaemias were
typed according to what they looked like down the microscope, and there being
as many opinions as there were people working that day at the (now
demolished) haematology lab of the Royal East Sussex Hospital.
Nowadays microscopy is just an add-on to flow cytometry and cytogenetics.
How long will it be before speciating will be done by something less
subjective than saying “I think it looks like…”
15 March 2026 (Sunday) - I Disagree...
Well… I wouldn’t have said that was hypersegmented. I would have said
that was a botryoid
neutrophil.
I think the take-home message here is not to judge on the strength of just one cell…
I think the take-home message here is not to judge on the strength of just one cell…
1 March 2026 (Sunday) - Beware What You Read...
Well, it’s intracellular yeast… The original question had people confidently saying green crystals of death, dohle bodies…
The take-home message here is to be *very* careful about what you read on
Facebook haematology groups…
15 February 2026 (Sunday) - Acanthocytes
Click here and click on “spiky cells” to see my take on the matter...
11 January 2026 (Sunday) - APML
APML… Promyelocytes might look vaguely “lymphy” at first glance but that’s because of the cytoplasm which (for the most part) lacks granules. But look at the nucleus. A lymphoid nucleus is generally sounder and more regular. The myeloid nucleus has lumps and bumps (albeit rounded).
I’m particularly prompted by the bit about “while morphology can strongly
suggest this diagnosis…” for many years that was all that could suggest any
diagnosis. It’s such a shame that cytogenetic and molecular testing are the
purview of specialist testing centres.
4 January 2026 (Sunday) - Grey Platelet Syndrome
Grey platelets. I thought so. Here’s an article
on the matter.
7 December 2025 (Sunday) - Parvovirus
Parvovirus infection can seriously adversely affect erythropoiesis. I didn’t realise that. One lives and learns… through doing CPD.
Here’s an article
on the matter.
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