Apologies once again. I failed miserably at writing a post yesterday. And it was a fantastically eventful day too! But occasionally sleep wins out. I shall make it up to you today/tomorrow. 'Til then, here's a tidbit to tide you over:
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| A smudge cell surrounded by healthy RBCs |
TIL: One test that is run to diagnose hematopathology disorders (anemias and blood/lymph cancers (leukemias and lymphomas)) is a peripheral blood smear. This one doesn't really need translating. Lab techs literally take blood from a peripheral blood sample and smear it onto a slide. They can then look at the composition of cells and their morphology to try to see if either the comparative amounts of different cells or the shapes of one particular cell type explains a patient's symptoms.
One such morphological indicator is the presence of "smudge cells." This actual scientific term is used to describe diseased B-cell lymphocytes (a kind of white blood cell) that are so fragile that when they are smeared across the slide their cell membrane shreds apart, leaving behind a highly stained blob of DNA from their nuclei. The presence of smudge cells is diagnostic for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
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