Blood Film:
![Picture](/uploads/1/5/1/5/15153328/1353811786.jpg)
Upon examination of the film, the technologist
reports the following results for the manual
differential and morphology:
reports the following results for the manual
differential and morphology:
From these results, and given the patient demographics, the physician suspects infectious mononucleosis. The presence of atypical lymphocytes (see below) strongly indicates this disease. Her symptoms also fit this diagnosis and are complemented by the laboratory results. However, this infection usually presents with a normal to elevated white blood cell count. As the patients WBC count is within the normal range (Table 2), the physician is not completely satisfied with the diagnosis. They are also curious to see if the patient’s anemia is related to the infection, or is a separate condition. Based on the morphological findings (Table 3), the presence of targets and basophilic stippling in a microcytic anemia suggest beta-thalassemia minor. This also coincides with the low MCV, MCH, and HGB as found in the CBC (Table 2).