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I'm a busy Mum and a Biomedical Scientist in Haematology. My particular interest is in blood cell morphology and parasitology, where I never stop learning.

Thursday 19 May 2022

PIN THE CELL ON THE PLOT!



 



A fun idea I copied from a Sysmex XN course a few years ago. I asked my colleague to build the XN differential plot and place cells in the correct location using the knowledge that the more complex a white cell is (i.e. it has granules and a lobulated nucleus), the further to the right it will be, and the more DNA/RNA content it has, the higher it will be.

 I’ve found it’s a really good way to reinforce understanding of the plots and allows the correct thought process to occur when there is a potential abnormality.

 As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, MDS can be picked up as the neutrophil population extends too far left, suggesting that less complex cells are there i.e. neutrophils lacking granules or with an abnormally segmented nucleus.

Blasts can be picked up because a population with more DNA/RNA is present, higher up to the left of the plot, but have few granules so are located more to the left. Nucleated red cells however have far less DNA/RNA content and no granules, so will reside in the bottom left.

Even malaria may be seen as a very complex population over to the right, with lots of pigment.

So Scientists out there,  if you see any unusual populations  on the plot, ask yourself, what this means by truly understanding how your particular analyser builds the plot.

 

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