The baciliform are the juvenile form of neutrophils in the blood. They appear when an increase in neutrophils in the bloodstream is needed and the marrow does not have the ability to provide them. Neutrophils that are not yet mature are sent into the torrent and are called bacilliforms.
An increase in bacilliforms in the blood indicates a shift to the left of the blood count, which may be an indicator of neutrophilia, indicating an increase in neutrophils in the blood. This can be an indicator of infections, inflammations, stress, significant tissue damage such as burns, trauma, heart attacks, among others.
Neutrophil characteristics
Neutrophils, also called neutrocytes, are the most abundant type of white series cells in the human body and in most mammals. Its function is vital to the innate immune system.
When neutrophils do not reach their full development, they appear in the blood in the form of bacilliform neutrophils, that is, in the shape of a rod, since the cell does not reach its full maturity at the moment of being released into the bloodstream.
Neutrophils are made from stem cells in the marrow of bones. Their life cycle is short and they are highly mobile, being able to enter tissue areas where other cells or molecules could not.
They are divided into segmented neutrophils and band neutrophils. They are part of the polymorphonuclear family of cells, along with eosinophils and basophils.
They are a type of phagocyte and are normally found in the bloodstream. During the onset of an inflammatory phase caused by bacterial infection, environmental exposure, or some types of cancers, neutrophils are the first line of response to reach the site of inflammation, traveling through the veins and arteries and then through the interstitial tissue.
The arrival of neutrophils to specific sites of infection is produced by the chemotaxis factor, where neutrophils move towards the area of injury or the presence of bacteria following chemical factors that are attractive to neutrophils. These include bacterial peptides, degradation products of the extracellular matrix, mediating lipids, among others.
In this way, neutrophils are the predominant cells in infectious processes where we find the presence of pus, which has a white and yellowish appearance due to the coloration of the neutrophils.
Neutrophils are present wherever there is acute inflammation. They are the first cells to reach any area of the body where there is trauma in minutes.
But they cannot always resolve infections on their own, needing support from the rest of the cells of our immune system, such as lymphocytes and macrophages, cells that are also involved in the response to infection.
Young neutrophils
The increase in young neutrophils in the blood cell count or CBC is known as an increase in bacilliforms. This in the blood test is called a "shift to the left" and is an indication of increased neutrophil utilization leading to increased neutrophil production.
A shift to the left indicates that a particular cell population in the blood count has moved to the left, that is, towards more immature cells (than we would normally see in the analysis). Almost always a deviation to the left is carried out with the series of neutrophils and we find the presence of bacilliforms.
In neutrophilia - that is, the increase in neutrophils in the bloodstream - we see a 12% increase in the presence of bacilliform neutrophils.
The most common cause of this shift to the left is that the patient has an infection. During a bacterial infection, the body uses a large number of neutrophils. Then, from the beginning of the infection until recovery, dynamic changes occur in the cells of the white series, which demonstrate the seriousness of the bacterial infection, from moderate to severe.
This is why the most important deviations are seen in large-scale infections, such as severe sepsis, viral infections, typhoid fever and some types of flu.
The most common cause of a shift in the blood count to the left, with a change as rapid as it is significant, is the presence of a bacterial infection, although there are also other pathological causes that can generate it.
Shifts to the left of the blood count, which are indicative of the presence of bacilliform neutrophils, do not occur in the early stages of infection or in the later stages. Thus, collecting the data at a single time is not suitable for diagnosing a bacterial infection.
On the other hand, if constant tests are performed to determine the deviation to the left of the hemogram, these will reflect in real time the consumption of neutrophils during a bacterial infection and will allow a more precise evaluation of the patient's condition. This is known as actual neutrophilia.
Another cause that could cause an increase in neutrophils and that the bone marrow sends bacilliform neutrophils to the torrent are non-infectious inflammations, such as in the case of asthma, significant burns, postoperative conditions, rheumatic fever, vascular diseases, gout and myocardial infarction.
It can also be associated with acute bleeding and metabolic problems such as preeclampsia and ketoacidosis. Even in cases of extreme exercise and fatigue such as in pregnancy, during childbirth and in newborns.
There are diseases that can cause a preponderance of bacilliform neutrophils, these are chronic myeloid leukemia, myelofibrosis and myeloid metaplasia, among others.
It also occurs in fast-growing neoplasms, where the tumor requires a large amount of blood and with this increases the production of cells in the bone marrow. This occurs in the case of squamous cell cancers.
Bacilloform bacteria and viruses
The term “bacilliform” can also be applied to rod-shaped bacteria or viruses with the same morphology, but the most common meaning is the finding within the hemogram, which in most cases, indicates a normal behavior of the organism against a bacterial infection.
References
- Neutrophil left shift and white blood cell count as markers of bacterial infection. Recovered from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
- Recovered from emedicine.medscape.com.
- Shift to the left. Recovered from medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com.
- Chapter 67: Functions of Neutrophils. Williams Hematology. Recovered from medtextfree.wordpress.com.
- Left Shift. Recovered from pathologystudent.com.
- Neutrophil chemotactic factors. Recovered from link.springer.com.