Abnormal blood test results for cancer or a disease can be a nightmare for everyone, understanding what do abnormal results mean for you is urgent, this is to clarify when should be concerned about an abnormal blood test result?
1- Interpreting the blood test results for tumor markers don't necessarily mean a cancer:
A blood test for cancer: is a measurement made from a blood sample, which assesses early diagnosis of cancer,monitoring the effectiveness of treatment and measure the patient's response.All of cancer tests are only indicators of the disease, you can't rely on them for final diagnosis. Whereas, the proportion of 5-10% of the cases is healthy even though they have abnormal high cancer blood test results, as well as 5-10% of the cases where the ratio is normal a person is infected.
So that, it's not recommended doing these tests routinely to prove or not prove the existence of the tumor, but these useful tests to track the status of the tumor, if any.
For example: CEA blood test, is an indicator of tumors in the colon and rectum in case of abnormal results over the normal lab values, however the small increase above the upper normal limit isn't enough to prove tumor marker existence or not.
Normal values for the the test CEA for non-smoking males and females is from 0 to 3.0 ng /ml.
2-Abnormal liver enzymes in blood test results don't mean a liver damage
Liver function test panel include aspartate aminotransferase (AST or SGOT) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT or SGPT) which together help diagnose liver damage.Some people get abnormal liver enzymes blood test results, which make them worry about their liver, the medical science tells us that the liver enzyme must be elevated two folds at least in order to diagnose liver damage, but the small abnormal values usually means mild liver harm as shown in early fatty liver, however in cirrhosis which is a complete liver cells damage, the liver enzymes may show normal, in fact the cells don't have more enzymes to leak into the blood.
What does abnormal blood test results mean?
3- Abnormal blood test results for pregnancy:
Positive pregnancy test means the woman is pregnant, but the Negative pregnancy test results isn't a strong evident that their is no pregnancy, need to retest for pregnancy after few days, the pregnancy hormone double every other day.
4- Abnormal blood test results for anemia:
Hemoglobin is the blood test used to monitor anemia, anemia is a disease in which you have low red blood cells count and/or low hemoglobin test results.
The low hemoglobin level means anemia, the high hemoglobin level means polycythemia, which is excessive red blood cells count over the normal limits
For hemoglobin levels chart.
5- Confirmation is crucial for complete diagnosis
Abnormal RF blood test results for Rheumatoid
Anti CCP test is necessary to confirm the positive results for Rheumatoid factor test (RF), RA disease is difficult to diagnose with visible signs and symptoms, but the modern guidelines recommend that the physicians use high positive tests along with prolonged symptoms to confirm RA diagnosis.
6- Abnormal CBC blood test results with normal counts:
A common case in the complete blood count test, show normal blood picture which means there is nothing abnormal in the CBC test, but you may found some letter such as "L" or "H" or "R" beside the count values, don't worry, these letters means "low", "high", and "repeat" respectively, they're flags by the CBC machine, only the lab technician concerned about.
Interference factors on the meaning of test results
7- Abnormal blood test results with wrong reference ranges:
You must be careful in interpreting your results, many test results depend on specific age and body condition, as the normal values for your child isn't normal for your results as an adult, and the pregnant women have normal levels different from those for non-pregnant women.
8-No interpretation for one test of a panel
Abnormal immunology blood test results
Immunity blood tests are measurement of antibodies in the blood, e.g. IGG, IGA, IGE, and IgM.
Doctors can deal with meaning of such tests, the interpretation of single result without taking into account the other antibodies test results leads to erroneous diagnosis.
9- Taking blood test is the wrong time of the month
Women tests FSH and LH test in particular: the first bleeding days of the menses period is the best time to measure the level of FSH and LH hormones, testing in different days results in abnormal hormone levels by wrong.
10- Fast before blood test can alter the diagnosis of diabetes treatment
Get to know all Fasting blood tests, however the glucose blood test results rely on the fasting or non-fasting state, i.e. the fasting blood sugar is up to 110 mg/dl while glucose level after 2 hours of launch can go up to 150 mg/dl
11- Treatment or not under treatment:
If the one takes insulin for DM disease, measuring the blood glucose level can reveal low and very low sugar level in glucose test, so that who want to interpret glucose blood test results must take into account the treatment time and dose, as the dose can alter the blood test results too.
Read: How long for blood test results?
Hope you have clear picture of your blood test results
