Background: Smoking is one of the most important public health problem, increasing the morbidity and mortality in the society. With prolonged exposure of RBCs to smoking, the deformability of RBCs is decreased, and its aggregation increases, and makes whole blood more viscous and causes microvascular complications.  This decreased deformability is reflected as anisocytosis in peripheral smear. This study is aimed at comparing anisocytosis between Active and Passive smoking and educating the smoking population about the deleterious effects of active as well as passive smoking.

Materials and Methods:  This study  was done in 150 subjects  in the age group 25 to 50 years (50 control , 50 male  subjects  with active smoking habit and 50 female  subjects ,who were exposed to passive smoking.  Peripheral smears were prepared and stained with leishman’s stain. Smears were focused under oil immersion objective, and the images were captured using a digital camera. Images were transferred to the computer system and RBC diameter was measured using UTHSCA image tool software. Variation in size of the  RBCs  between control and  active and passive smoking subjects were  compared using  Pearson’s  product moment correlation coefficient and  Paired sample t test.

Results:  Increase in the  variation in the size of RBCs (anisocytosis) is   observed in both active and passive smokers using Pearsons product moment correlation coefficient ,significant  r value of   0.85 and0.8  are got in active and passive smoking.  Using Paired sample t test, significant p value of ˂ 0.01 is got in active and passive smokers.

Conclusions: Our study concluded that variation in the RBC size, is almost equal in active and passive smokers. This clearly shows the harmful effects of smoking is equal in family members of active smokers.

Keywords:  Smoking, Red Blood Cell membrane deformability, Peripheral smear, Image tool, Anisocytosis

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Rangarajan.R

Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Government Mohan Kumara Mangalam Medical College, Salem, Tamil Nadu, India

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