What effect can lipemia have on a blood smear?

• A. Create stripes
• B. Create bands
• C. No effect
• D. Distorts cells

Answer: (A)

Lipemia introduces lipid droplets into the blood that can migrate during smear preparation, creating visible trails across the slide. These lipid-rich areas line up to form parallel streaks or stripes, which are artifacts rather than true features of the cells. This streaking can interfere with staining and obscure cell detail, making interpretation more challenging. So, the best description of the effect is the appearance of stripes on the smear. The smear would not typically show genuine bands of cells, and saying there’s no effect ignores the known artifact lipemia introduces, while distortion of cells is not the primary or defining change seen here.