The effect of taurine addition on the complete blood count

Abstract

The complete blood count (CBC), also known as hemogram or blood panel, one of the components of the routine physical examination, aims to provide a lot of information to the physician regarding the state of a person’s general health. The CBC is frequently used as an essential screening test for a wide range of conditions and disorders, including anemia, infection and leukemia. The CBC test, which is reliably performed by automated machines in most laboratories, measures the quantity of all the cellular part of the blood: red blood cells (RBC), white blood cells (WBC) and platelets (PLT). Additionally, the CBC affords some valuable information on other indices related to each type of blood cell. Any abnormities (increases or decreases) in blood cell counts or related indices as revealed by the CBC may indicate an underlying medical condition that directs and justifies further, more specific, laboratory investigations to confirm the diagnosis (1, 2). For trustworthy results, the CBC test should be performed within a certain time limit which may be affected by the type of anticoagulant used and the preservation temperature and, to some extent, the automatic cell counter used (3, 4). However, in different circumstances, processing blood samples is not possible within these time limits; hence blood samples received at the laboratories are either discarded or proceeded with doubtful reliability. In the current issue of the Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia, Sirdah et al. provide a new prospect to extending the time limit for trustworthy CBC test results (5). In their study the authors added the naturally-occurring ß-sulfonated amino acid, taurine, to …