New York State Department of Health - Wadsworth Center - Cytohematology Proficiency Testing

Slide 014 [100X]

This specimen was taken from a peripheral blood smear made from the blood of a 48 year old male who was diagnosed with myeloid metaplasia. He did not follow through with treatment. At the time of this CBC report, his WBC was 109.2 X 10³ /µL, which corrected to 26.0 X 10³/µL for 320 nucleated red blood cells that were also present. Based on the granules, the cell was a myelocyte. However, the response of promyelocyte was also accepted. The response of metamyelocyte was also accepted because it is in the granulocyte cell series and this response was needed to obtain a consensus. The cell was not mature enough and did not have the cellular characteristics of a metamyelocyte. Acceptable responses for this slide were myelocyte (code 44), promyelocyte (code 43) and metamyelocyte (code 45). This slide was misidentified by 31 laboratories as a monocyte (code 49) and by 2 laboratories as an atypical lymphocyte (code 52). One laboratory each misidentified this cell as blast cell present but not classified (code 01), myeloblast (code 04), hairy cell (code 08), Pelger Huët (code 36), and as band neutrophil (code 46).

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