About: Left shift (medicine)

Left shift or blood shift is an increase in the number of immature cell types among the blood cells in a sample of blood. Many (perhaps most) clinical mentions of left shift refer to the white blood cell lineage, particularly neutrophil-precursor band cells, thus signifying bandemia. Less commonly, left shift may also refer to a similar phenomenon in the red blood cell lineage in severe anemia, when increased reticulocytes and immature erythrocyte-precursor cells appear in the peripheral circulation.