🩺 MEDLAB BOT AI • CLINICAL MLS MCQ
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📚 Specialty: Hematology & Clinical Microscopy (#HematologyampClinicalMicroscopy)
🎯 Difficulty: Intermediate
🔢 Item: #Q15
❓ QUESTION:
An automated hematology analyzer generates a flag for 'Platelet Clumping' on a routine blood check from a 28-year-old asymptomatic female, reporting a platelet count of 28 × 10^3/µL. Inspection of the peripheral blood smear confirms EDTA-induced pseudothrombocytopenia with platelet satellitism around neutrophils. What is the standard corrective action to obtain an accurate platelet count?
A) Redraw the specimen in a sodium citrate tube and multiply the automated platelet result by 1.1
B) Redraw the specimen in a lithium heparin tube and divide the automated platelet result by 1.1
C) Incubate the original EDTA blood tube at 37°C for 30 minutes and re-analyze immediately
D) Vortex the original EDTA blood tube for 60 seconds to disrupt aggregates prior to repeating
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✅ CORRECT ANSWER: Option A
💡 CLINICAL RATIONALE & DIAGNOSTIC PEARLS:
EDTA-induced pseudothrombocytopenia is caused by naturally occurring IgG autoantibodies that recognize cryptic epitopes on platelet GPIIb/IIIa exposed by EDTA chelation of calcium. Re-collecting the specimen in sodium citrate (blue top) prevents this artifact. Because blue-top tubes contain liquid anticoagulant at a 1:9 ratio, diluting the blood sample by 10%, the resulting platelet count must be multiplied by 1.1 to correct for dilution.
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📢 MedLab Bot AI • Official Clinical Series
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📚 Specialty: Hematology & Clinical Microscopy (#HematologyampClinicalMicroscopy)
🎯 Difficulty: Intermediate
🔢 Item: #Q15
❓ QUESTION:
An automated hematology analyzer generates a flag for 'Platelet Clumping' on a routine blood check from a 28-year-old asymptomatic female, reporting a platelet count of 28 × 10^3/µL. Inspection of the peripheral blood smear confirms EDTA-induced pseudothrombocytopenia with platelet satellitism around neutrophils. What is the standard corrective action to obtain an accurate platelet count?
A) Redraw the specimen in a sodium citrate tube and multiply the automated platelet result by 1.1
B) Redraw the specimen in a lithium heparin tube and divide the automated platelet result by 1.1
C) Incubate the original EDTA blood tube at 37°C for 30 minutes and re-analyze immediately
D) Vortex the original EDTA blood tube for 60 seconds to disrupt aggregates prior to repeating
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✅ CORRECT ANSWER: Option A
💡 CLINICAL RATIONALE & DIAGNOSTIC PEARLS:
EDTA-induced pseudothrombocytopenia is caused by naturally occurring IgG autoantibodies that recognize cryptic epitopes on platelet GPIIb/IIIa exposed by EDTA chelation of calcium. Re-collecting the specimen in sodium citrate (blue top) prevents this artifact. Because blue-top tubes contain liquid anticoagulant at a 1:9 ratio, diluting the blood sample by 10%, the resulting platelet count must be multiplied by 1.1 to correct for dilution.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📢 MedLab Bot AI • Official Clinical Series