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Immature granulocytes in peripheral blood

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Hello, I haven't posted in quite a while but my wife just had another checkup so I'm back with another question. She has been doing well over the past two years since diagnosis, reaching PCRU 9 months after diagnosis and remaining quite low since then. Her last two PCR tests have been just below 0.01 IS. Her most recent PCR tests haven't come out yet, but her peripheral blood test today showed immature granulocytes. Here in China the test is for metamyelocytes, myelocytes and promyelocytes. Her myelocyte result was 1.0% (which I believe is the lowest positive result possible on this particular test), while metamyelocytes and promyelocytes were both 0. On previous tests over the past year these numbers have all consistently been zero, so we're both a little worried about whether this is something we should be concerned about. I have read that granylocutes can show up from time to time in peripheral blood due to infection, but I'm not sure how common this is. Does anybody have experience with this issue?

 

Thanks a lot,

Chris

Hi Chris,

From what I understand, I don't think you need to be concerned.  The appearance of myelocytes (1%) in your wife's peripheral blood is is probably due to an infection.

"Neutrophils develop in the bone marrow. Normally, the immature neutrophils (myelocytes, metamyelocytes, band cells) remain in the bone marrow until they reach maturity.  In normal conditions, only band cells are seen in the blood (less than 6% of all white cells).  During a bacterial infection, large numbers of neutrophils are consumed as they deal with the infection so sometimes there is a release of immature neutrophils i.e myelocytes, metamyelocytes etc.,  into the peripheral blood." 

Sandy

Hi Sandy,

Thanks very much for your reply. Got the results back yesterday and she's back to PCRU! I guess a little bit is nothing to worry about. 

Cheers,

Chris