3 areas of a Blood Smear
- body area
- monolayer area
- feathered edge
Low Power (10X)
Evaluate body:
- limited use 🡒 may be able to identify platelet clumps or large organisms
- DO NOT evaluate RBC agglutination here 🡒 often d/t artifact here
Evaluate monolayer:
- central pallor of RBCs (dogs) most prominent here
- determine if RBC density is normal/🡑/🡓
Evaluate feathered edge:
- limited use but assess always
- larger organisms + cells + clumps of cells + platelets often pulled out to this area bc of their size
continue higher power evaluations primarily in monolayer
Mid Power (40/50X)
perform 100 cell differential count of leukocytes
differentiate rouleaux from agglutination
- rouleaux = linear association
- agglutination = cluster of grapes
- should disperese with addition of physiologic saline to an unstained we amount of whole blood
Assess for nRBCs:
- quantified during leukocyte differential + reported as number of nRBCs per 100 WBCs
- typically seen in response to anemia
- when 🡑 nRBCs are observed in non-anemic patients, then BM or splenic dz should be considered
- do not mistake for lymphocytes
- automated analyzer may count them as WBCs
High Power (100X)
remember to stay within monolayer
closest assessment of cellular detail:
- WBC morphology, inclusions, etc.
- platelet count, morphology, inclusions
- RBC morphology
Identify + quantify RBC characteristics:
- anisocytosis
- polychromasia
- poikilocytosis
- hemoparasites + inclusions
