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

Slide 083 [100X]

The arrowed object is a Howell-Jolly body. This photograph was taken from the February 1998 glass slide event, Slide 008, sickle cell anemia. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of the participating laboratories correctly identified the presence of Howell-Jolly bodies when presented on the glass slide. Howell-Jolly bodies are round blue-black inclusions in red cells seen on Wright-stained smears. They are nuclear fragments of condensed DNA, normally removed by the spleen, but appearing in severe hemolytic anemias, in patients with dysfunctional spleen, or after splenectomy.

NUMBER OF RESPONSES	% OF LABORATORIES	CELL CODE AND TYPE
471	99.4%	code: 35 Howell Jolly body
1	0.2%	code: 11 Atypical lymphocyte
1	0.2%	code: 53 Platelet Satellitosis
1	0.2%	code: 57 No such code

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