Blood Cells: A Practical Guide

Blood Cells has been written with both the practising haematologist and the trainee in mind. It aims to provide a guide for use in the diagnostic haematology laboratory, covering methods of collection of blood specimens, blood film preparation and staining, the principles of manual and automated blood counts and the assessment of the morphological features of blood cells. The practising haematologist should find this book sufficiently comprehensive to be a reference source while, at the same time, the trainee haematologist and biomedical scientist should find it a straightforward and practical bench manual.

Enables both the haematologist and laboratory scientist to identify blood cell features, from the most common to the more obscure

• Provides essential information on methods of collection, blood film preparation and staining, together with the principles of manual and automated blood counts


• Completely revised and updated, incorporating much newly published information: now includes advice on further tests when a specific diagnosis is suspected


• Four hundred high quality photographs to aid with blood cell identification


• Highlights the purpose and clinical relevance of haematology laboratory tests throughout

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Valerie L. Ng, PhD MD(Alameda County Medical Center/Highland Hospital)
Description:This is the fourth edition of one of the best comprehensive reference books and atlases devoted entirely to blood cells. The previous edition was published in 2002.
Purpose:The purpose is to provide a comprehensive reference for anything relevant to the practicing clinical laboratory scientist doing hematological testing. This book is considered one of the best references for hematology clinical laboratory testing, and this edition upholds its tradition of excellence. The author is a noted international authority in this area.
Audience:This book would be useful for anyone involved in clinical hematology, from clinical laboratory scientists (CLSs, in training or students) to physicians (in training, medical students, residents, fellows, in practice) or allied health practitioners. Practicing physicians in pathology, hematology/oncology, internal medicine, primary care, or in any specialty interested in blood would find this book useful.
Features:As with previous editions, the photomicrographs are breathtaking in the reproduction of morphological detail, true color, and scope of diseases represented. I literally thumbed through the entire book just to drool over the photomicrographs. What's new in this edition is material related to immunophenotyping and cytogenetics for the diagnosis of hematological disorders. Admittedly this new material is rather sparse, especially in comparison to books currently on the market that focus entirely on these new diagnostic methods. The author herself comments that the intent of this book, while attempting to be comprehensive, continues to focus primarily on core microscopic morphology and automated blood analysis. The sheer breadth and depth of the core material presented here more than makes up for the relative deficiency of in-depth discussion of newer technologies. One minor flaw was the continued use of FAB classifications for leukemias and myelodysplastic syndromes, given that many of us in the United States have migrated to using the newer WHO classifications that incorporate immunophenotyping and cytogenetics in diagnosis.
Assessment:You can't get much better than this book. Get it and chain it to your bookshelf. An unchained copy is guaranteed to "walk" -- this book is that good.

Professor Bain's research interests are ethnic and other biological differences in haematological variables and cytogenetics in relation to haematological malignancy. She has a major interest in teaching, both undergraduate and postgraduate, as well as in the development of teaching resources such as videos, slide sets, websites and CD-ROMs and the development of teaching courses for haematologists, haematology trainees haematopathologists, medical laboratory scientists and cytogeneticists. Amongst other collaborations with experts in the field, she has devised the WHO classification of tumours of the lymphoid haemopoietic systems.