Final answer:
A high number of blasts in a patient's peripheral blood would likely be seen as a distinct peak on a WBC histogram, indicating an abnormal increase in these immature cells, often due to leukemia.
Step-by-step explanation:
If a patient has a high number of blasts in their peripheral blood, their WBC (white blood cell) histogram from a flow cytometer would typically show an unusual peak, indicating the presence of these immature cells. The option A) stating that the histogram would show a shift to the right with an increased number of blasts in a separate peak is the accurate description. This can be an indication of certain types of leukemia where the bone marrow produces a large number of immature white blood cells. Affected patients would show this separate peak because blasts have different scatter and fluorescence characteristics compared to mature WBCs.
In the normal WBC histogram, the peaks correspond to the different populations of white blood cells, which include lymphocytes, monocytes, granulocytes, and others. In the presence of an increased number of blasts, these would form a distinct population with scatter and fluorescence characteristics different from mature cells, often seen to the right of the normal cell populations if viewed on a logarithmic scale for fluorescence.