7 January 2021 (Thusday) - Neutropenia

Here’s an interesting article from the American Society of Hematology… I’ve known for a long time that people of African origin often have much lower neutrophil counts than many other ethnic groups. Now I’ve found that it would seem to be connected to the Duffy- Null (Fy(a-b-) phenotype)

Now in no way does this observation incite racial hatred or imply one group is in any way better or inferior to another. It just is.. and it may well be relevant in my daily practice when I find mild neutropenia as a chance finding.

The author of the paper seems to be making some political-racial statement about it though… I don’t really understand how or why…

7 January 2021 (Thursday) - Transfusion News Update

The nice people at Transfusion News sent their update today. Again quite a bit about COVID, but the article on transfusing premature babies was interesting…

If only they would spell “haemoglobin” correctly…!

Higher Hemoglobin Transfusion Thresholds Do Not Improve Outcomes in Preterm Infants

January 5, 2021 Within the last decade, lower hemoglobin transfusion thresholds have been found to be safe and effective for most patient subpopulations. However, preterm, extremely-low-birth-weight [Read More]

Serological Screening of Blood Donations Suggests SARS-CoV-2 May Have Been Introduced in the US before January 2020

December 22, 2020 The first case of SARS-Cov-2 in the United States was reported on January 19, 2020 in Washington State, but phylogenic data and retrospective nucleic acid testing of archived samples suggest it may have been earlier. [Read More]

 

6 January 2021 (Wednesday) - Cabot Rings Revisited

I spent five minutes revamping my Atas entry on Cabot rings. I saw one three years ago – I wonder if I will ever see another?

Mind you I do like the new format I'm using. It works as a stand-alone web page and as a linked frame...