18 June 2024 (Tuesday) - Mindray

There’s a new kid on the block. Back in the day every blood counter in the country was made by Coulter. And I mean *every* one.
Then Technicon launched the H1. With a five-part differential that (at the time) Coulter could not compete, it wasn’t long before Technicon made serious in-roads into the market.
Then along came Sysmex with faster smaller machines…
 
Mindray looks interesting. Particularly with their platelet de-aggregation capability. I doubt they will have their machines in at work before I retire, but maybe a year or two after…

17 June 2024 (Monday)- Learning Monday


Should I worry about this strange looking cell? At first sight I laid an egg. Then I looked again and read the words that came with it.

It’s bone marrow – that’s an osteoclast, isn’t it?

Panic over.

13 June 2024 (Thursday) - Oncology Central Update

The nice people at Oncology Central sent their update today. As always most of it went over my head, but one article made me think.

Quadruplet therapy – four drugs where once three were used. There was a lot of talk about avoiding side effects… I can remember my grandmother having a spate of “funny turns” when it turned out that for every medication she’d been prescribed she’d been prescribed another because of the side effects of the first. In the end the consultant in charge of her care stopped all of the tablets and she was suddenly fine.

This was fifty years ago – some things never chage…


10 June 2024 (Monday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

Time for another BTLP-TACT exercise… I was presented with one case – a ninety-year-old chap in theatre needing two units of blood for a TURP. Back in the day we did two units of blood for every TURP… they never used any. Ever.
But I digress.
 
He grouped as O Rh(D) Positive with antibody screen positive in cell 2 so I requested antibody panels. The IAT and enzyme panels were positive in cells 2 & 6 corresponding with anti-K.
I selected two units of O Rh(D) Positive K Negative blood
 
I got the green light.

 

10 June 2024 (Monday) - Fritsma Factor Newsletter

Threshold limits for platelet transfusions, factor assays (remember those?) and poking about in samples with wooden sticks to check for clots. This month’s Fritsma Factor newsletter is a tad old-skool… but then, so am I.

I’ll just make the observation that in this high-tech age of science there is still a place for getting hold of a snake, milking its venom and using that as a reagent. Back in the day (early to mid 1980s) there was a very active haematology group which met at St Thomas’s hospital on Thursday evenings. People would do round trips of over a hundred miles to be there (I did) and back then people were sneering at the rough and ready use of snake venom in haemostasis.

Has nothing been developed in the meantime to replace Russell’s viper?

7 June 2024 (Friday) - NEQAS 2403 BF

I got hold of the NEQAS results today…
 

2403 BF1

 

Anisopoikilcytosis 

Polychromasia

NRBC 

Fragments 

 

Thrombocytopenia

 

eosinophilic myelocytes 

Blast cells

Neutropenia

Auer rod

 

?? AML

 

 

2403 BF2

 

Target cells

Rouleaux

 

Neutrophilia

Toxic granulation

Monocytosis

 

? infection

 
I got these right too…

7 June 2024 (Friday) - NEQAS 2402 PA

I got hold of the NEQAS results today…
 

2402PA1

P falciparum 0.2%

2402 PA2

microfilaria ?? loa loa

 
I got it right…