Anisocytosis and microcytic cells: what to think?

You just had your blood test result, and hard to remember not to take a look. In the results, some details are sometimes useful to know, in order to assist the physician in his interpretation. Anisocytosis, microcytosis, words a little complex and difficult to remember ...

What is anisocytosis?

Anisocytosis means that there is a difference in size and shape between the cells of a cell line blood. Generally, this term is used to denote the presence of red blood cells of different sizes. Lesmacrocytes cells are large, the microcytic cells are smaller.

The anisocytoce is found in all forms of anemia encountered during a cancer, hemolysis, intoxication or during chemotherapy.

What is microcytic cell?

The microcytic or microcytes cells are small size of the line of red blood cells. This is called microcytosis. In this case, mean corpuscular volume, or MCV is usually lower than normal. This is a parameter that provides information about the size of red blood cells, the normal value is between 85 to 100 cubic micrometer.

There are:

- A aniso-microcytosis with predominantly microcytic cells (small sizes)

- A aniso-macrocytosis with predominantly macrocytic cells (large)

What does anisocytosis to microcytic cells?

The anisocytose is found in all forms of anemia. The most important thing here is the existence of microcytic cells, thus forming the starting point of our analysis and to characterize the type of anemia.

The existence of a anisocytose associated with the presence of microcytic cells is an aniso-microcytosis. This feature is usually encountered

- An iron deficiency: the cause is most frequently encountered and is secondary to several conditions such as:

· Chronic bleeding, including gastrointestinal origin (a stomach ulcer or intestinal schistosomiasis, for example) or uterine origin (heavy periods)

· Multiple pregnancy

· An inflammatory condition resulting in anemia (iron is blocked at macrophages). The most common are rheumatic inflammatory diseases, autoimmune diseases or infectious diseases.

· Certain digestive disorders (malabsorption, celiac disease, ...), the cause of a lack of iron absorption and thus a decrease in intake of iron in the body

- Of thalassemia

- Sickle cell

However, before reaching these conclusions, the interpretation of a associated with microcytosis anisocytose can not be interpreted in isolation, but must take into account the results of all the parameters of the count in the blood. Other important parameters are mainly analyzed as:

- The hemoglobin and the rate of red blood cells, which can confirm the existence of anemia

- The reticulocyte count to determine the nature of regenerative or arégénératif anemia. This parameter is used to assess whether the bone marrow is functioning normally and can respond effectively to anemia

- Mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration or MCHC, which measures the amount of hemoglobin in the red blood cells. A lower rate than normal associated with microcytosis usually confirms iron deficiency or iron deficiency.

- An iron status with analysis of serum iron, transferrin in blood or serum ferritin, and total iron binding capacity

Of course, all these results are interpreted in terms of

- Age, sex, medical history, lifestyle, ...

- The general condition of the patient,

- Presented the clinical signs that led to the prescription of these reviews,

- Clinical examination of the treating physician.

To go further

Counts in the blood