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. 2013 Mar;30(1):53-7.
doi: 10.4274/tjh.2011.0015. Epub 2013 Mar 5.

Can sex be determined from a blood smear?

Mohamed Brahimi  1 , Affaf Adda  1 , Hassiba Lazreg  1 , Hadjer Beliali  2 , Soufi Osmani  2 , Mohamed Amine Bekadja  2
Affiliations

Can sex be determined from a blood smear?

Mohamed Brahimi et al. Turk J Haematol. 2013 Mar.

Abstract
in English, Turkish

Objective: Originally, this blind study was designed to check whether blood smears constitute reliable tools to determine sex. However, when we analyzed our data some interesting findings immerged and in this paper we try to highlight them.

Material and methods: 74 blood smears (35 women and 39 men) have been performed and then stained. 200 polynuclearneutrophils were examined for nuclear appendages and classified into four groups: neutrophils with form A, B or C appendages and neutrophils without any appendage.The difference (A-C) was calculated for each slide. The "cytologic sex" was defined as a male in case of a negative value and as a female otherwise.

Results: Neutrophils bear the same amount of appendages in both genders (p=0.37). But the number of form A is greater in females (p<0.0001) and form C is much more frequent in males (p<0.0001), that is why, the difference A-C is the best way to differentiate between both sexes.The distribution histogram of A-C in women shows a multimodal histogram contrary to men's graphwhich is a bell-shaped curve. The menstrual cycle was incriminated in this feature.

Conclusion: Blood smear is a reliable tool to determine gender.

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Amaç: Orijinal olarak planlanmış bu kör çalışmanın amacı çevre kan yayması incelemesi ile cinsiyet belirlemesinin yapılıp yapılamayacağını tespit etmek. Elimizdeki bulguları incelediğimizde bazı ilginç sonuçlar ortaya çıkmıştır; bu çalışmada onları vurgulamak istiyoruz. Gereç ve Yöntemler: 74 çevre kan yayması (35 kadın; 39 erkek) hazırlandı. 200 nötrofil çekirdek ilave uzantısı açısından incelendi ve dört gruba ayrıldı: A, B, C tarzında çekirdek ilave uzantısı olanlar ve hiç çekirdek ilave uzantısı olmayanlar. Her çevre kan yaymasındaki çekirdek ilave uzantısı şekillerindeki (A-C) tarzındaki farklılıklar sayısal olarak tespit edildi. Eğer hesaplanan değer negatif ise ‘sitolojik cinsiyet’ erkek olarak tanımlandı, diğer durumlarda ise kadın olarak tanımlandı. Bulgular: Nötrofiller her iki cinsiyette de aynı miktarda çekirdek ilave uzantısı taşımaktaydı (p=0,37). Fakat A şekli kadınlarda (p<0,0001); C sekli ise erkeklerde daha sık gözlendi (p<0,0001). O yüzden A-C histogramının dağılımı kadınlarda multimodal histogram seklindeyken, erkeklerdeki dağılım grafiği çan-eğrisi seklindeydi. Bu farklılıktan menstrüel durum sorumlu tutuldu. Sonuç: Çevre kan yayması incelemesi cinsiyet tayininde güvenilir bir yöntemdir.

Keywords: Blood Smear; May-Grünwald-Giemsa stain; Nuclear appendages; Polymorphonuclear neutrophils; gender.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Different forms of appendages (arrow): A) form A (drumstick), B) form B (sessile nodules), C) and D) form C (C: tag and D: hook).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Error boxes (means ± 2 standard deviation error bars) with data swarm. Each dot represents a subject. The left bar represents the women’s data and the right the men’s data. Error bars are centered on the mean of the distribution range and demonstrate an interval of 2 standard deviations of the mean.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Distribution histogram of the difference of A – C. The solid curve represents men’s data and the dashed curve represents women’s data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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