%0 Case Reports
%T Peripheral blood smear - An expeditious test in the preliminary diagnosis of bone marrow embolism in a case of multiple fractures: A case report.
%A Rajashekar RB
%A Suchitha S
%A Shetty MS
%A Gowda AP
%J Indian J Pathol Microbiol
%V 67
%N 2
%D 2024 Apr 1
%M 38817156
%F 0.773
%R 10.4103/ijpm.ijpm_394_21
%X <B>UNASSIGNED: </B>Bone marrow embolism is known to occur after fractures of long bones such as the femur and pelvis. We report a case of multiple fractures in a 32-year-old female patient, demonstrating bone marrow elements in the peripheral blood as early as 2 hours after trauma. This is the first case being reported with an ante-mortem demonstration of circulating marrow emboli in the peripheral blood, while the previously reported cases have demonstrated the emboli in post-mortem examination. A careful correlation of the clinical history of trauma, hematology auto-analyzer results, and the presence of bone marrow particles and fat globules in peripheral blood helped in arriving at the diagnosis of fat embolism in our case irrefutably.