To fully appreciate the changes that can occur in various forms of microcytic anemia, a brief review of the normal stages of maturation and expected morphology is provided. Three sets of terminology describe the erythrocyte maturation stages as presented in Table 1.1,2,3 Current terminology in bold is what is used in most literature.
Table 1. Terminology Used for the Stages of Erythrocyte Maturation.| Erythrocyte Maturation Terminology |
| Rubriblast | Pronormoblast | Proerythroblast |
| Prorubricyte | Basophilic Normoblast | Basophilic Erythroblast |
| Rubricyte | Polychromatophilic Normoblast | Polychromatophilic Erythroblast |
| Metarubricyte | Orthochromatic Normoblast | Orthochromatic Erythroblast |
| Reticulocyte (Diffusely Basophilic Erythrocyte) | Reticulocyte | Polychromatophilic Erythrocyte |
| Erythrocyte | Erythrocyte | Erythrocyte |
1. Robinson S, Hubbard J. The erythrocyte. In: Clinical laboratory hematology. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Pearson; 2015. p. 59-76. 2. Rodak BF, Carr JH. Erythrocyte maturation. In: Clinical hematology atlas. 5th ed. St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier Inc.; 2017. p. 17-30.3. Bell A, Harmening DM, Hughes VC. Morphology of human blood and marrow cells. In: Clinical hematology and fundamentals of hemostasis. 5th ed. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Company; 2009. p. 1-41.
