Salami F, et al. - Experts evaluated if complete blood counts (CBC) were changed in 4-12 year-old children without (n=376) or with one or several islet autoantibodies (IA) against either insulin, GAD65 or IA-2 (n=72). For this investigation, they analyzed CBC during longitudinal follow up in 448 Swedish children recruited in The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study. In children with IA, white blood cell and neutrophil counts were primarily decreased in boys, while decreased levels of hemoglobin and hematocrit were found in girls. The lowest counts of white blood cells and neutrophils in boys and red blood cells, hemoglobin and hematocrit in girls were found in those positive for multiple IA. These correlations were largely seen in children with the HLA-DR3-DQ2/DR4-DQ8 genotype. The findings from this study suggested that the decrease in neutrophils and red blood cells in these children might signal a gender-dependent islet autoimmunity detected in longitudinal CBC.