Guidelines for the diagnosis, investigation and management of polycythaemia/erythrocytosis.

Traditionally, polycythaemia has been used to identify a group of varied disorders with an increase in circulating red cells that are typified by a persistently raised haematocrit (Hct). Since only the red cell lineage is involved, the term erythrocytosis has more validity and will be used throughout this article. Polycythaemia will be retained in relation to the clonal disorder, polycythaemia vera (PV), in which three cell lineages are involved.