Granulocytosis
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In medicine, granulocytosis is the presence in peripheral blood of an increased number of granulocytes, a category of white blood cells. Often, the word refers to an increased neutrophil granulocyte count, as neutrophils are the main granulocytes.
Granulocytosis can be a feature of a number of diseases:
- Infection, especially bacterial
- Malignancy, most notably leukemia (it is the main feature of chronic myelogenous leukemia, CML)
- Autoimmune disease
In cardiovascular disease, increased white blood cell counts have been shown to indicate a worse prognosis.