Table 2.

Semiquantitative evaluation of erythrocyte morphology based on average number of abnormal cells per x 1000 microscopic monolayer field^*

	1+	2+	3+	4+
Anisocytosis	5–8	9–15	16–20	>20
Polychromasia	1–2	3–8	9–15	>15
Hypochromasia	1–10	11–50	51–200	>200
Poikilocytosis	3–10	11–50	51–200	>200

^*A monolayer field is defined as a field in which erythrocytes are close together, with approximately one-half touching each other. In severely anemic animals, such monolayers may not be present. When erythrocytes are generally not touching (eg, tend to be separated by the distance of one cell diameter), then the number of erythrocytes with morphologic abnormalities is counted for two fields From Weiss (1984), ¹⁰ with permission