Clinico-hematological profile of dimorphic anemia

Abstract

Dimorphic anemia (DA) is characterized by two different cell populations. One population is of microcytic hypochromic and other being either normocytic or macrocytic. A retrospective study was undertaken to correlate and compare the clinico-hematological parameters in DA done over a period of 6 months. All cases of anemia diagnosed during this period were analyzed and all cases diagnosed as DA in the peripheral blood smear (PBS) were included in the study. In PBS, dual population was seen in 17.5% of cases of anemia (178), comprising microcytic hypochromic with normocytic normochromic red blood cells in 37.1% of cases (66) or macrocytes in 62.9% of cases (112). Pancytopenia was seen in 9.55% (17) cases and bicytopenia in 50.5% (90) patients. Only eight cases had bone marrow correlation. All marrows were hypercellular showing megaloblastic erythropoiesis. DA is one of the common anemia but is an undermined entity. In low-resource settings, clinical and hematological parameters are of paramount importance for diagnosis and guiding treatment.

Keywords

• Anemia
• dimorphic
• macrocytes