Blood tests
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
There are a lot of blood tests. Like, billions. We are going to tell you about the key ones.
Full Blood Count (FBC)
This is common to do. It's pretty much your standard. Especially important to do in infection, heart problems, surgery and anaemia.
- White blood cell (WBC) tells you about of white blood cells per volume of blood. Normal is around 4-11x109/L. Low means immunosuppression, high means infection or cancer.
White blood cell differential looks at the types of white blood cells present:
- Neutrophils (40-75%) (raised in bacterial infection)
- Lymphocytes (20-45%) (raised in viral or bacterial infection, and in haematological cancer)
- Monocytes
- Eosinophils
- Basophils
- Haemoglobin is the amount of Hb in the blood. Normal is around 13-18g/dL in men and 11.5-16g/dL in women. High means dehydration, cancer or lung disease. Low is anaemia: check the page for causes.
- Platelet count is the number of platelets. Normal is around 150-400x109/L. Low points to cancer, chemo or autoimmune problems, whilst high signifies haematological cancer.
- Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) is average size of your red cells. Its raised in some anaemia, and lowered in others. Visit the Causes of anaemia page for more on types.
Clotting (CLS)
There are a variety of tests they do, such a Prothrombin Time (PT) and Partial Thromboplastin Time (PTT). Basically though, they are used to test people before surgery, to test the effectiveness of anticoagulation or to isolate weird bleeding disorders, such as Haemophilia and von Willibrand's disease.