APPENDIX
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Agranulocyte: A leukocyte without definite cytoplasmic granules.
Agranulocytosis: Complete or nearly complete absence of the granular leukocytes
from the blood and bone marrow.
Aleukemic Leukemia: A fatal condition of the blood-forming tissues, characterized by
marked proliferation of immature cells in the bone marrow, without their presence, in
any great numbers, in the blood steam.
Anemia: A condition in which the blood is deficient in quantity or quality of erythrocytes.
Anisocytosis: Variation in size of the erythrocytes.
Anomaly: Abnormality.
Anoxemia:
Lack of
normal proportion of
oxygen in
the blood.
Antecubital Space: The area on the forearm frontal to the elbow.
Anticoagulant: A substance that prevents the coagulation of blood. Commonly used
ones are potassium oxalate, sodium oxalate, sodium citrate, EDTA and heparin.
Aplasia: Incomplete or defective blood development; cessation of blood cell formation.
Aplastic Anemia: Anemia characterized b incomplete or effective blood development.
Asynchronous: Uncoordinated development as in abnormal cell development.
Azurophilic Granule: Rounded, discrete, reddish-purple granule, smaller than the
granules of neutrophils; 1-10 are common in lymphocytes, and they are very numerous,
and smaller, in the cytoplasm of monocytes
Band Form: In the Schilling classification, a neutrophil with the nucleus unsegmented
and ribbonlike; also stab, staff, nonfilamented.
Basket Cell: A degenerated primitive cell which has ruptured and in which the cell
nucleus appears as a pale staining smear without prescribed form or shape.
Basopenia: An abnormal decrease in the number of basophils.
Basophil: A granular leukocyte, the granules of which have affinities for the basic dye
of Wright stain (methylene blue). The granules are large, irregular and blue-black in
color.
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