Question

A patient’s blood smear is shown in the picture. The patient has also shown symptoms of sickle cell anemia. What are the abnormalities in this picture?

Answer 1

A blood smear is a blood test used to look for abnormalities in blood cells. The three main blood cells of interest are red blood cells, which carry oxygen throughout the body. Platelet disease, which is important for blood clotting and white blood cells which forms cellular defense against pathogens. Any abnormality observed in the smear can be correlated with the complaints made by the patient and together this helps in appropriate diagnosis.

Complete answer:
Now, before we begin answering this question. We will focus on some important points before reaching out to any conclusion.
The first thing that we need to keep in mind is that the patient has complained of some symptoms which are more likely to be of sickle cell anemia. Now, in such cases a peripheral blood smear is analyzed.
The second thing that we need to focus on is that sickle cell anemia, the shape of the erythrocytes or red blood cells is distorted and they become sickle shaped.
Now, let’s look at the figure.
In this figure if we carefully look at the blood smear, we can detect that the shape of red blood cells seems distorted as the normal red blood cells are biconcave. The red blood cells in the observed smear appear sickle shaped.

Note:
Sickle cell disease or sickle cell disease (SCD) is a genetic disease of red blood cells (RBC). Usually red blood cells are disc-shaped, which allows them to pass through even the smallest blood vessels. In this case, red blood cells have an irregular sickle shape similar to a sickle, which makes them sticky, stiff and easily invade small blood vessels, preventing blood from reaching different parts of the body, causing pain and tissue damage. It also impacts the oxygen carrying capacity of individuals and is inherited as an autosomal recessive disorder.