Our doctors reviewed you question, here's the detailed answer for you.
As previously stated that the normal total leucocyte count for babies more than 2 years and less than 6 years is:
| 5000-15000 *10^3/ul |
You can review the full chart for Complete blood count normal ranges for 2-6 years old baby
According to the normal reference range for such age, we can tell that your baby has "mild leucocytosis".
leucocytosis is a medical condition where the white cells count is out of normal range.
But in medical words we can see that the number 18000 is too small in such age to be a cause of cancer or something terrible.
As you have to know that elevated white blood cell count is a sign of inflammation as a normal response of our immune system to fight infection for instance, also hyperthermia (fever) is another aspects of normal body response in such emergency situations.
May be a flu, doctor may swab his nose to do a flu test, but if came negative we must think about other causes...
The possible causes of mild leucocytosis are:
- Eosinophilia. ... Other parasitic infections that cause tissue invasion also cause marked eosinophilia.
Other infections: Scarlet fever (recovery phase),
viral infections (recovery phase),
and chlamydial infection cause an absolute increase in eosinophils but generally do not cause leukocytosis
2. Urinary tract infection and pneumonia due to other organisms are more prevalent in infants with fever and typically cause less leukocytosis than an infection with S pneumoniae (a type of bacteria cause Pneumococcal disease).
Recommendations: urinalysis, stool examination test, culture and sensitivity test for urine and stool
3. Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA), but it less likely if the fever is mild and the TLC is still low, JRA may cause TLC to go as high as 60000,
we recommend you to undergo blood work (RF test, high ESR , Strep test), xrays, mri's and even spinal taps.
What pediatrician can tell about high TLC and fever in a baby?
Pediatrician doctor may ask to record baby's body temperature daily and make a chart from fever levels to know the trend of elevations.
Also, flu test must be done.
Notice any change in the baby's appetite, cough, if there's wet or dirty diapers, that can be a symptom of diarrhea and infection.
May order urine test and stool examination to exclude infection with UTI, then he may prescribe antibiotics (a dose of ceftraiaxone injection IP)to kill the infecting bacteria, also Tylenol and Motrin to lower fever.
Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA), especially if Tylenol and Motrin did not bring down the baby's fever (fever over 100), and often had to have ice baths to bring them down.
Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis treatment is a regime of baby aspirin and for more than 1 month, it shouldn't happen again.
Note that:
Be careful when give kids any antibiotics as it the dose calculated upon the weight of baby, once reoccurence of fever is subsided you can start a special protein-rich diet.
Always you must notice and record biological signs and changes on your baby's body in order to make early detection of any disease and away any harm to your precious babies.
