Usefulness of Peripheral Blood Smears in Identifying the Causes of Anemia in Adults

Anemia is common in hospital patients, being found in about half of the automated complete blood counts (CBCs) done on adults aged 20+ at our hospital. Often the reason for the anemia is immediately apparent (post-operative state, end stage renal disease without erythropoietin treatment), but often...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Blood 2005-11, Vol.106 (11), p.5565-5565
Main Authors: McPhedran, Peter, Hall, Robert B.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Anemia is common in hospital patients, being found in about half of the automated complete blood counts (CBCs) done on adults aged 20+ at our hospital. Often the reason for the anemia is immediately apparent (post-operative state, end stage renal disease without erythropoietin treatment), but often it is not. Many tests are available for the differential diagnosis of the causes of the anemia. Morphologic evaluation of a Wright-stained blood smear by a skilled observer is labor intensive, but sometimes useful in the differential diagnosis of anemia. When unexplained anemia is identified in a patient on the Medical Service at our teaching hospital, the ward team may also send an intern or a medical student to check out the smear. The potential diagnostic yield of any of these evaluations (the skilled observer, the intern, the student) is unknown. We did a prospective evaluation of 202 consecutive adults with initially unexplained anemia (Hb
ISSN:0006-4971
1528-0020
DOI:10.1182/blood.V106.11.5565.5565