Toxic granules in neutrophils in sepsis patients: Does it really helpful?

Introduction: Timely diagnosis of bacteremia/sepsis is essential for the initiation of antimicrobial therapy and further reducing morbidity and mortality. Aims and Objective: This study is undertaken to find out the importance of toxic granulations in neutrophils in the diagnosis of sepsis. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional type of study which was carried out for 1 year (August 2020 to August 2021). A total of 100 cases were included in the study. The smears were studied to assess the differential leukocyte count and neutrophils toxic granules. Observations and Results: The age of the patients ranged from 11 to 92 years, with M:F ratio 1:1. Total leukocyte count (TLC) ranged from 1.6 to 37.3 × 109/l with a mean of 14.7 × 109/l. Absolute neutrophil count (ANC) varied from 1.31 × 109/l × to 32.4 × 109/l with a mean of 10.4 × 109/l. On peripheral smear examination, 31% of cases showed no granules in the neutrophils, 35% of cases showed scattered darkly stained granules in the cytoplasm of neutrophils (1+), 29% showed an increase in the number of granules and increase in intensity (2+), and only 5% cases showed numerous granules with increase blue–black stain. However, none of the cases showed numerous coarse granules crowing the cytoplasm (4+). Conclusion: In this study, we found that none of the single parameters, for example, the TLC and ANC, toxic granulations, and left shift are diagnostic of sepsis but all these are complementary to each other in predicting the diagnosis of sepsis.