Blasts flag in automated hemogram; an observation in acute febrile illness assessment in primary care setting

Abstract

Acute febrile illness is an important clinical problem.  It is a common chief complaint that the patient usually presents to physicians. A basic laboratory investigation for assessment of the case with acute febrile illness is complete blood count (CBC). The automated hematology analyzer is a useful tool for CBC investigation in thr present day. Here, the authors report on the observation on blasts flag in automated hemogram in CBC test for assessment of patients with acute febrile illness in a primary care setting. The summarization on the automated hemogram during 1 year period, 2017, was performed. The incidence of blasts flag is 1.79 %. Further investigations showed no case with hematological malignancy.  Conclusively, blasts flag is not an uncommon result in CBC test for acute febrile illness assessment and this result is usually not related to an actual appearance of hematologic malignancy.