| Common hereditary elliptocytosis (HE) | Hereditary pyropoikilocytosis (HPP) | Spherocytic elliptocytosis | Southeast Asian ovalocytosis (SAO) | ||
| Heterozygous | Homozygous or compound heterozygous (hemolytic HE) | ||||
| Anemia | None to minimal | Moderate to severe | Severe | Mild to moderate | None |
| Hemolysis | None to mild; may have transient hemolysis during early infancy | Moderate to severe | Severe | Mild to moderate | None to mild; may have transient hemolysis during early infancy |
| Splenomegaly | Absent | Present | Present | Present | Absent |
| Peripheral blood smear and mean corpuscular volume (MCV) | Elliptocytes; MCV normal; may have transient poikilocytosis during early infancy | Elliptocytes, red blood cell (RBC) fragments, and microelliptocytes; MCV low | RBC budding and fragments, microspherocytes, and microelliptocytes; MCV very low (30 to 50 fL) | Spherocytic elliptocytes; no fragments; MCV low | Rounded ovalocytes and stomatocytic elliptocytes (with one or two transverse bars); MCV normal |
| Osmotic gradient ektacytometry | Diminished deformability, indented plateau | Severely diminished deformability, indented plateau | Greatly diminished deformability; right-shifted Di-min or O-min, reflecting spherocytosis | Should have right-shifted Di-min or O-min, reflecting spherocytosis | Greatly diminished deformability |
| EMA binding | Normal | Normal, with a tail of diminished binding if RBC fragments are present | Greatly diminished | Modestly diminished | Greatly diminished |
| Osmotic fragility | Normal | Increased | Increased | Increased | Normal to decreased |
