title: Red blood cell morphology reporting: how much is a waste of time?
abstract: Red blood cell morphology (RBC-M) reporting is a routine requirement for hospital laboratories when reporting complete blood counts. However, there is little evidence that RBC-M reporting is useful to pediatric clinicians. We surveyed pediatric hematology specialists and nonspecialists at the BC Children's Hospital (Vancouver, Canada), to evaluate the perceived clinical utility of this reporting. Although a large majority of pediatric clinicians refer to RBC-M reports in their clinical practice, less than half consider these reports to be clinically useful. Hematology specialists were more likely than nonspecialists to identify individual RBC-M descriptions as clinically useful. Some RBC-M descriptions, such as anisocytosis, were considered not useful by specialists and by nonspecialists. A large proportion of nonspecialist respondents noted that they did not know the clinical significance of some of the RBC-M terms. Educational initiatives to inform nonspecialists about the clinical significance of some RBC-M descriptions should be considered. A few RBC-M descriptions are not clinically useful to either specialists or nonspecialists, and these could be omitted from RBC-M reports as a step toward improved hematology laboratory reporting.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, BC Children's Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. jford@cw.bc.ca
authors.forename: Jason C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Ford
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Milner
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Dix
mesh_terms: D048430:Cell Shape; D004906:Erythrocyte Count; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000166:cytology*; D006405:Hematology / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D013997:Time Factors