Often, medical terminology can be quite confusing, alien, intimidating, and sometimes downright frightening, but one procedure in particular that has a scary name, is actually harmless and fairly ordinary: the peripheral blood smear test.
A peripheral blood smear test is a process that is used in order to gain microscopic information about blood cells. A drop of blood is placed on a slide and put under a microscope. Blood smears (sometimes called blood films) are typically conducted to evaluate red and white blood cells, to examine if blood cell shape and numbers are normal, to detect possible blood disorders, for testing of malaria, and to observe cell production and maturity during treatment of leukemia.
A single drop of blood is smeared over the length of a spreader slide, and then dyed in order to separate, and manually differentiate the individual blood cells. The smear is essentially a picture, frozen in time, of the existing cells that are taken during the sample.
Instruments that can automatically differentiate blood cells exist, however if your doctor detects an abnormality in your blood, or a possible parasitic infection, they may request a blood smear test. Many professionals still consider the human eye and human discernment to be the most effective means for determining and examining immature and abnormal cells. A machine has the ability to recognize the existence of abnormal cells, but cannot definitively categorize them. Fragments of cells and platelet clumps, especially if their sizes are somewhat large, can be wrongly counted as white blood cells, consequently inflating an incorrect white cell count. A laboratory technician can see these abnormalities on a blood film and has been trained to identify and classify them appropriately.
Besides blood cell counting, the routine procedure of a peripheral smear test can help in the analysis of cells and in making a diagnosis. Sometimes, findings from blood smear tests are not conclusive, but may instead signify the existence of an underlying disease, its acuteness, and any necessary additional diagnostic testing. The information provided by blood films can also reveal the affects of drugs and medications on red and white blood cells. Blood smear tests may have a dramatic name, but they are quite tame in nature.
