Peripheral blood film - A review

The peripheral blood film (PBF) is a laboratory work-up that involves  cytology of peripheral blood cells smeared on a slide. As basic as it is, PBF  is invaluable in the characterization of various clinical diseases. This article highlights the basic science and art behind the PBF. It expounds its  laboratory applications, clinical indications and interpretations in the light of  various clinical diseases. Despite advances in haematology automation and  application of molecular techniques, the PBF has remained a very important diagnostic test to the haematologist. A good quality smear, thorough  examination and proper interpretation in line with patient’s clinical state should be ensured by the haemato-pathologist. Clinicians should be abreast with its clinical utility and proper application of the reports in the management of patients.Keywords: Peripheral blood smear, Preparation, Examination, Interpretation, Reporting, Blood cells morpholog

Knowledge, attitude and control practices of sickle cell disease among youth corps members in Benin City, Nigeria

Background: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a major public health problem in Nigeria. Carrier prevalence is about 25% and it affects about 2 – 3% of the Nigerian population. The disease runs a chronic course, characterized by recurrent ill-health, progressive organ damage and shortened life-span. There is a need for SCD control through public education and other preventive measures.Objectives: This study aimed at assessing the level of knowledge regarding SCD among a cross-section of new tertiary graduates in Nigeria, as well as factors influencing their knowledge. It also describes their attitudes and patterns of control practices engaged by the respondents regarding SCD.Methods: This was an analytic, cross-sectional study among 370 new tertiary graduates (youth corps members) in Benin City, Nigeria. Bio data, data on knowledge, their attitude and control practices of sickle cell disease were obtained using a structured questionnaire. Association between the mean level of knowledge and other variables such as age, gender, course of study, etc were tested using one way analysis of variance.Results: Most of the study participants were aged 22 - 29 years. A large proportion (63.5%) of the respondents was females. Only 17.8% of the respondents had a good knowledge of SCD despite high level of awareness (98.4%). Those who studied courses related to medical sciences had significantly higher mean knowledge score. About 94.6% of the respondents knew their SCD carrier status and 80.8% were willing to avoid carrier marriages. Only 38.1% will accept prenatal diagnosis/selective abortion if locally available.Conclusion: Most participants demonstrated moderate level of public health knowledge regarding SCD in Nigeria. Considering the relative lack of prenatal diagnostic services, low acceptability of selective abortion among the respondents, sub-optimal care of affected persons and poor access to haemopoeitic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in our environment, stronger efforts should be directed and sustained at primary prevention through public education and screening regarding SCD.Keywords: Knowledge, Attitude and practice, Sickle cell disease, New tertiary graduates, Youth corps member

Seroprevalence of Treponema Pallidum in Donor Blood at the University Of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City

Objectives: To determine the Seroprevalence of Treponema pallidum in Donor blood at University of Benin Teaching Hospital Benin City. Materials and Method: This is a descriptive hospital based study. Donor blood supplied to the hospital blood bank was screened for syphilis. The study was conducted between February and October 2012. Syphilis antibody was tested using the rapid plasma reagin (RPR) test screening kit by Acumen diagnostics limited.Results: A total of 7,996 unit of blood was screened for Treponema pallidium antibody during the study period. Ninety five (95) units of blood tested positive for VDRL test, giving a sero-prevalence of 1.19%. Conclusion: The Seroprevalence of syphilis in UBTH is low (1.19%) and is comparable with those in some centres in Nigeria and elsewhere. There is need to sustain routine screening for the spirochaete in blood donors and stringent donor selection criteria should be enforced to further reduce the risk of transfusion transmissible infections including syphili

Robust and efficient approach to diagnose sickle cell anemia in blood

Red Blood Corpuscles (RBCs) form the main cellular component of human blood. RBCs in common physiological status has a circular form in the front view and bi-concave form in side view. In case of a person is infected with anemia RBCs form as sickle-shaped cells which drive to blood vessel obstruction joined by painful episodes and even death. Precise and robust cells classification and counting are essential in evaluating the level of anemia disease danger. The classification and counting of red blood cells (normal and abnormal RBC cells) are challenging due to the complex and heterogeneous shapes and overlapped cells. In this paper, we propose a new robust approach to classify red blood cells to two groups: Normal and Abnormal RBC cells based on area and Eccentricity of each cell, then count the total number of normal and abnormal RBC cells individually. For the sake of comparison, we also implement the latest Sickle cell research, which uses circular Hough transform. We compare our approach to circular Hough transform in the same execution environment. Our new approach sets the state-of-the-art performance in term of effectiveness (cell counting) and efficiency (execution time)