Acanthocyte
Abnormal red blood cell with a spiked cell membrane / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Acanthocyte (from the Greek word ἄκανθα acantha, meaning 'thorn'), in biology and medicine, refers to an abnormal form of red blood cell that has a spiked cell membrane, due to thorny projections.[1][2] A similar term is spur cells. Often they may be confused with echinocytes or schistocytes.
Acanthocytes have coarse, irregularly spaced, variably sized crenations, resembling many-pointed stars. They are seen on blood films in abetalipoproteinemia,[3] liver disease, chorea acanthocytosis, McLeod syndrome, and several inherited neurological and other disorders such as neuroacanthocytosis,[4] anorexia nervosa, infantile pyknocytosis, hypothyroidism, idiopathic neonatal hepatitis, alcoholism, congestive splenomegaly, Zieve syndrome, and chronic granulomatous disease.[5]