Transcription
Hey guys, it's Medicosis Perfection, Alice here. Today we're going to talk about tomato cells. They are abnormally shaped red blood cells, aka pi'illo sites. Because, you know, pi'illo site is a term that includes any abnormally shaped red blood cell. One of those abnormal red blood cells are these tomato cells, and they look like this: a central pallor is not circular; instead, it's a slit shape.
So let's get some terminology or nomenclature here. We have tomato and site. Site, of course, as you know, means cell—that's easy. How about stoma? Stoma means mouth or a slit or a pore. If you remember your old science classes, the green leaf had some pores called stomata through which the plant can breathe. So tomato cell: the cell that has a mouth or a slit in it. Again, stoma—side—slit-like central pallor—like a coffee bean, which is kind of romantic, or kissing lips, which is even more romantic. See how doctors have great imagination? Okay.
Causes of tomato cells can be an artifact, like an error during preparation. Okay, this will be less than 10% of the cells on your blood film as tomato cells. The rest of the cells, or 90%, will be just normal red blood cells. Okay, if they are more than 10%, it's a disease; it's not an artifact. So artifact, like, such as what may be the soul is dehydrated or even overhydrated, can give you this flood shape. Also, acidemia; if you're taking drugs such as phenothiazine, chlorpromazine, or hereditary; it's tomato cytosis. Yes, indeed, it exists, or liver disease, decreased lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase, which will lead to accumulation of cholesterol, which will lead to tomato cell formation.
So what's the mechanism of formation of this tomato cell? To understand the abnormal, let's understand the normal first. You have your normal red blood cell, which is biconcave, and here is the area of the central pallor. If you look at it from above, you'll find everything is red except for a pale center. It's here, fine. If this cell is put in hypertonic saline, it has a chance to expand before bursting because we have started with a biconcave shape. But the exact mechanism is kind of more complicated. Hypertonic just means more sodium. More sodium will go into the red blood cell. What follows sodium is water; it will go inside the red blood cell, will swell, more swelling will lead to bursting—this is hemolytic anemia. So how does the normal red blood cell defend itself against osmosis? By doing the opposite—by letting sodium out so that water will go out, and potassium comes in. That's the normal. So we have two mechanisms here: we have the mechanical shape of the red blood cell, the biconcave disk, which will give it more leverage to expand in hypertonic saline. Second, we have a biochemical mechanism by altering the sodium and potassium so that we can expand in face of the hypertonic saline, gives us more time for bursting.
Now, what's the mechanism of the abnormal, this tomato cell heritage? There is tomato cytosis; they have a genetic problem causing sodium to go into the cell, potassium to go out of the cell. When sodium comes into the cell, water will follow; the cell is now overhydrated. When this was overhydrated, hemoglobin is less content, so we have low MCHC. This is the story of this tomato cell. Instead of this circular central pallor, we have a slit shape central pallor. That's it for today's video—it's tomato cells. It could be an artifact, such as in dehydrated or overhydrated cells; we can be seen in liver disease or hereditary tomato cytosis. I will see you in the next video. Please don't forget to subscribe. Thanks a lot.