Quiz: White Blood Cell Evaluation in Blood Films

Numeric and morphologic evaluation of WBCs are essential components of the CBC.

Automated in-house hematology analyzers can aid in the numeric portion of the assessment, but no hematology analyzers are able to identify morphologic abnormalities in the cells. Toxic changes, left shifts (regenerative or degenerative), neoplastic cells in circulation, parasites, and inclusions are among the important findings that require blood film evaluation. In addition, even when all CBC values are within the reference interval, abnormalities may still be detected on the blood film. The following images and their interpretations focus on WBC morphology.