Diagnostic Laboratory Section

SIGNIFICANCE

• A normal ESR does not exclude the possibility of a disease process.

Increased ESR

• Acute general infections
• Increase in plasma fibrinogen by diets rich in proteins, in pregnancy and tissue inflammation and destruction
• Suppurative conditions
• Vascular malignant tumour with tissue break down
• Since equine blood normally shows increased rouleaxu formation, ESR reading is taken at 30 minutes

• ESR is specifically increased in diseases like distemper, leptospirosis, infectious canine hepatitis, filariasis, myocarditis, bacterial endocarditis, pleuritis, peritonitis, radiation injury, hypercholesterolaemia and chronic interstitial nephritis.

Decreased ESR

• Increase in the number of erythrocytes
• The presence of microcytes and poikilocytes
• Refrigerated temperatures
• Haemolytic jaundice

Diphasic sedimentation

• When reticulocytes, leptocytes, normoblasts and poikilocytes are present they settle at a slower rate while red cells settle faster. Due to this a trailing of RBC column is noticed in the tube. The line of separation of plasma and cell column is indistinct and a tail is noticed.
• Disphasic ESR is characteristically seen during response to immune mediated haemolytic anaemia and in erythrogenic alteration in active haemopoiesis.