🔬“Pawn Ball” megakaryocyte – a sign of myelodysplasia. ✅In the 1970s, the term “Pawn Ball” megakaryocyte entered common parlance among bone marrow morphologists. ✅But what is a “Pawn Ball”? Pawn – a chess piece. Ball – a sphere. A literal translation is meaningless. This is the name of an ancient symbol of three balls with a complex and interesting history. ✅Previously, the symbol was used in foreign pawnshops. ✅However, the most widely accepted theory about the three-ball symbol is that it originates from the insignia of the Italian bourgeois family – the Medici, who built an outstanding banking and trading empire in Florence during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Among the representatives of the Medici family are four Roman Popes (Leo X, Pius IV, Clement VII, Leo XI) and two Queens of France (Catherine de’ Medici and Marie de’ Medici). 👉Source: Steensma, D. P. (2003). “Pawn Ball Megakaryocytes”: From the Marvellous Medici and Dear Old Saint Nick to the Unsanctified Marrow of Myelodysplasia. Hematology, 8(1), 11–18.
Pawn Ball Megakaryocytes in Myelodysplasia
Explore the morphological features of pawn ball megakaryocytes in myelodysplastic syndrome. Understand the diagnostic significance of dysmegakaryocytopoiesis in bone marrow smears.
