Peripheral blood smear – An expeditious test in the preliminary diagnosis of bone marrow embolism in a case of multiple fractures: A case report

Bone marrow embolism is known to occur after fractures of long bones such as the femur and pelvis. We report a case of multiple fractures in a 32-year-old female patient, demonstrating bone marrow elements in the peripheral blood as early as 2 hours after trauma. This is the first case being reporte...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rajalakshmi B. Rajashekar, S Suchitha, Mahesh S Shetty, Apoorva P. Gowda
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2024-04-01
Series:Indian Journal of Pathology and Microbiology
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Online Access:https://journals.lww.com/10.4103/ijpm.ijpm_394_21
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Summary:Bone marrow embolism is known to occur after fractures of long bones such as the femur and pelvis. We report a case of multiple fractures in a 32-year-old female patient, demonstrating bone marrow elements in the peripheral blood as early as 2 hours after trauma. This is the first case being reported with an ante-mortem demonstration of circulating marrow emboli in the peripheral blood, while the previously reported cases have demonstrated the emboli in post-mortem examination. A careful correlation of the clinical history of trauma, hematology auto-analyzer results, and the presence of bone marrow particles and fat globules in peripheral blood helped in arriving at the diagnosis of fat embolism in our case irrefutably.
ISSN:0377-4929
0974-5130