🔬 Knizocytes in a blood smear. A special type of poikilocytosis.
🙏 Photos kindly provided by biologist Ksenia Puchkova, Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory, Rostov-on-Don.
📖 Reference: ✅ Knizocytes are a special type of red blood cell that has an unusual shape with two concavities instead of one, which is characteristic of normal biconcave discs. A thin band of hemoglobin crossing the central pale area is indeed their characteristic feature.
👉 Such cells can be found in thalassemia and other hereditary anemias, where membrane damage alters cell morphology. ✅ To clarify the diagnosis, it is important to supplement the morphological study with an analysis of hemoglobin levels (HbA2, HbF) and to perform electrophoresis or high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to identify specific abnormalities.
