A Rare One!

Quite a rare one here... I had to look it up! Pearson’s Syndrome.. it’s a Congenital Sideroblastic anaemia and Pancreatic dysfunction. I was trying to work out why this patient had macrocytic red cells and thrombocytopenia. Reading around this, it seems that these features are consistent with this form of sideroblastic anaemia. I usually associate sideroblastic anaemia with microcytes and dimorphic red cells and hadn’t appreciated that mainly macrocytes could be a feature and how many different types of sideroblastic anaemia there actually were. Reading about this, it seems that a good starting point in searching for the cause of sideroblastic anaemia is to look at the MCV. So MCV is important! Bottomley, S. Leung L. Tirnauer, JS. (2020) Causes and the Pathophysiology of the Sideroblastic Anaemias

I also saw these. Pappenheimer bodies, which are blue iron containing inclusions in the red cell, and often found near the edge , I usually scan for these when I have a patient with an unexplained anaemia and dimorphic red cells. A lot learnt today! I’ll be using this blood film in morphology training to demonstrate the diversity of red cell size in the Sideroblastic Anaemias.

Malaria Parasitaemias

Dr Samuel Boadi who led Monday’s UK NEQAS Blood Parasitology course, made a very good suggestion for speeding up the calculation of Malaria percentage parasitaemias, in a busy laboratory. The laboratory should establish it’s own average number of red cells per field when using a x100 objective. This average number can be used every time, rather than the microscopist calculating it separately on every occasion. I’m going to ask number of different colleagues to count how many red cells they see on a film using a x100 objective, and take an average. I’ll fill out a quality improvement notice and see if this could be used and added to our SOP, as it will significantly improve turn around times!  

WORMS!!!!

I took a photo of this Microfilaria on last months Parasitology NEQAS. It was indeed Loa Loa. I find this species the easier one to diagnose, mainly because the sheath gives just a halo impression when stained with Giemsa (requires haematoxylin to be seen) and that the nuclei extend right to the tip of the tail. This coincided nicely with today’s UK NEQAS yearly parasitology course, which I attended online. Dr Samuel Boadi, gave a simple breakdown of the features of the tail, in three Filariasis species.

I’ll remember this now, Wucheria Bancrofti- nuclei do not extend to the tip of the tail, whereas Loa Loa, they do. Brugia Malayi is quite distinct with two nuclei separated from one another. Interesting on the NEQAS expert comment, it was suggested that Filaria can be seen macroscopically on a slide. My colleague described it as almost looking like an eyelash. I’m going to have another look, see if I can spot them!

Digital Morphology 2004DM 04/10/20

Digital Morphology 2004DM CPD date 04/10/20 

 I got this right! Myeloproliferative disorder transformed to Acute Megakaryoblastic Leukaemia. 

 I love the training links on the UK NEQAS digital morphology website. Take a look https://www.instagram.com/haematography/, really useful for anyone involved in blood cell morphology.

 I particularly found useful, the guidance on when to use the term 'Megakaryocyte fragment' and when to use the term 'Giant platelet'. Megakaryocyte fragments are basophilic, often atypical in shape, may be vacuolated and lack granules. A giant platelet however is enlarged but has very typical platelet features.

Another learning point from the case narrative was that the heavy granulation (what I would call toxic granulation) in this case, may not neccessarily be due to infection or inflammation, but yet another bizarre abnormaility. A point that I had not previously considered. 

 The narrative also mentions that the fragments seen are not associated with with an acute microangiopathic haemolytic anaemia (MAHA), as they are note sharp in appearance. The bizarre shaped fragments seen here are found in Dyserythropoiesis. I have personally however, seen blunt red cell fragments in TTP but I accept the bizarre shapes are not a feature of MAHA.

Lots of learning points on this film.