Reticulated Platelets

[xanthines]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I guess this is for all you BB guys...

So how do you check/measure reticulated platelets? Is it Thiazole Orange and flow? Or is there something better? What's standard protocol for this?

I'm about to try to look this up, so don't feel obligated to answer but what type of patients usually present with reticulated platelets? Menstrual cycle? Leukemias?

Thanks!

-X

 

[xanthines]

Hey yaah, could you delete that duplicate thread? I thought my series of tubes got clogged, but I guess it didn't.

Thanks!

-X

 

[pathomatic]

yes

you can measure reticulated platelets using flow cytometry and thiazole orange staining. I had to do that for some experiments i was doing in grad school. Basically, you can stain blood samples with Thiazole orange and look for both reticulocytes and platelets with the same flow setting (you can differentiate the platelets from the RBC/retic by their signature scatter profiles on the dot plot).

Intestingly, Erythropoietin injections (both humans and mice) not only increase the percentage of circulating reticulocytes but also increase the percentage of reticulated/immature platelets in circulation. I don't know the medical relevance of it. I talked to the heme/onc clinician about this and he felt that this could be a cause of increased thrombotic events seen in patients on Epo therapy (because of both increased hematocrits as well as due to increased "stickiness" of immature platelets).