You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Short report
Automatic wedge smears preparation may cause traumatic morphological changes in peripheral blood cells
  1. Antonio La Gioia1,
  2. Maurizio Fumi2,
  3. Paola Pezzati3,
  4. Fiamma Balboni4,
  5. Ylenia Pancione2,
  6. Lucia Rocco2,
  7. Silvia Sale2,
  8. Maria Bombara5,
  9. Marcello Fiorini5,
  10. Fabiana Fiorini6,
  11. Vincenzo Rocco2
  1. 1 Docemus Onlus “Theoretical and Practical Training School for Improving Specialty Medicine”, Torrevecchia Teatina, Italy
  2. 2 U.O. Patologia Clinica A.O.R.N. “G.Rummo”, Benevento, Italy
  3. 3 Centro Regionale Controllo di Qualità AOU Careggi, Firenze, Italy
  4. 4 Laboratorio Analisi IFCA (Istituto Fiorentino di Cura ed Assistenza), Firenze, Italy
  5. 5 UOC Medicina di Laboratorio Livorno Azienda USL Toscana Nord Ovest, Italy
  6. 6 UOC Medicina di Laboratorio Pontedera Azienda USL Toscana Nord Ovest, Italy
  1. Correspondence to Dr Antonio La Gioia, Via di Ripoli 127, 56035, Casciana Terme-Lari, Italy; ant.lagioia{at}gmail.com

Abstract

In recent years, several automated analysers that prepare and stain blood smears have been introduced in clinical laboratories. Despite the use of instrumental settings based on physical characteristic of individual samples, traumatic injuries of neutrophil and lymphocytes can be observed. Some samples present a very high percentage of damaged cells, allowing the speculation that a cellular susceptibility may enhance mechanical traumatism. These artefacts can puzzle morphological evaluation in both traditional and digitised microscopy; in addition, unskilled operators can be misled.

  • Peripheral blood smears
  • light microscopy review
  • leukocytes morphological changes
  • granulocyte dysplasia
  • automatic slide makers.

https://doi.org/10.1136/jclinpath-2017-204580

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Mary Frances McMullin.

    • Contributors ALG, MF and VR planned and designed the study. YP, SS, LR, MB and FF performed laboratory work and evaluated the slides and the pictures on the pre-classification systems. PP, FB, ALG and VR revised the manuscript critically. MF, MF and FF analysed the data. MF and MF performed the statistical calculations. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.