The patient has a slightly elevated white blood cell count, slight eosinophilia, and basophilia. Whereas eosinophilia is not unusual with asthma, especially when it is exacerbated by allergy, basophilia is not a usual finding. A manual differential was performed because of the flag on the basophil count.
The results of the manual differential correlated well with the automated differential regarding the other cells. However, only 1% basophils were noted on the manual differential. The images below are among the cells seen. Note that the first cell is a basophil; the one below is a neutrophil with toxic granulation (for comparison purposes - toxic granulation was not seen in this case).
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