Research Article DOI: 10.4274/tjh.2011.0015 Can Sex Be Determined from a Blood Smear?

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