Platelet Survival in the May‐Hegglin Anomaly*

The May‐Hegglin anomaly is an autosomal dominant trait characterized by the association of giant platelets with Döhle bodies containing ribonucleic acid in the cytoplasm of granulocytes and monocytes. It is usually associated with thrombocytopenia (Oski, Naiman, Allen and Diamond, 1962; Davis, Wilson and Larsen, 1964), which was present in the patients reported here. We had the unusual opportunity to investigate the platelet survival of a 69‐year‐old woman with the May‐Hegglin anomaly and of her 66‐year‐old brother, who had had a splenectomy 8 months previously. We have seen giant platelets of irregular shape in the blood and in the megakaryocytes of the bone marrow of these patients. The megakaryocytes appeared normal in number, and we suspected that the platelets might be prematurely destroyed by the reticuloendothelial system because of their large size and irregular shape (Fig. I). Some of the autologous platelet survival data have been published in an abstract (Davis and Wilson, 1965).