Several
artifacts can cause significant and potentially misleading alterations to
measured RBC parameters:
- Old samples cause RBCs to swell, thus increasing PCV and MCV and decreasing MCHC.
- Lipemia causes a falsely high Hgb reading, and hence a falsely high MCHC.
- Hemolysis causes PCV to decrease while Hgb remains unchanged, again leading to a falsely high MCHC
- Underfilling of the tube causes RBCs to shrink, causing PCV and MCV to decrease and MCHC to increase.
- Autoagglutination causes a falsely low RBC count, and hence a falsely high MCV.
