1 Department of Pediatrics, Division of Medical Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle 5, Washington
2 Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle 5, Washington
The purpose of this letter is to provide criticism of a recent paper (Pediatrics, 35:712, 1965) in which nuclear projections in the neutrophils of one boy with 13-15 trisomy were compared to those from 7 "normal controls," 4 of whom were females. The findings suggested to the authors that "the presence of nuclear projections in neutrophils is not of practical value in the diagnosis of the 13-15 trisomy syndrome in the neonatal period."
We are critical of the authors' choice of controls and disagree with their conclusions for the following reasons: (1) The 4 female "controls" had a significantly greater mean number of projections per cell than did the 3 male controls (P < 0.001).