Blood Test Results Explained

Dr.Megan Ralf

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Q: WBC 3.8 after 4.2, Is that something to be worried about?

Question: Blood test 2 years ago my white blood cell count was 4.2 . Didn’t get my blood taken last year but a couple days ago had it taken and down to 3.8. Is that something to be worried about? It’s within range but borderline low. Something I should mention?

Answer:
WBC stands for white blood cell, kind of blood cells that fight bacteria, viruses, parasites, as well as allergies.
The normal WBC range for adults is *4.1 – 11.0 10*3 cells/uL of blood, when your WBC count is within this two normal limits, it’s said that you white blood cells count is normal or as expected for healthy people.
However, Normal WBC not just means you’re completely safe and have no disease, because our body balance mechanisms trying to fight invaders without making too much noise,

Therefore, WBC may still within nominated limits even they currently in a war against some invasions, but when the WBC elevate it is understood that the invasion goes massive and harder for the body to tolerate and must get additional caring from the hospital.

Therefore any abnormal count of WBC means the body defense system become so busy and request help from doctors and healthcare staff.

Lower than 4.0 in adults referred as “Leucopenia” “flagged with L or A letter” and means there’ a reason the White cells decreased in numbers or suppressed.

WBC 3.8 after 4.2

So, what can suppress White blood cells and obstacle or stop their function?
Bone marrow disorders: Multiple myeloma and aplastic anemia, in your case such diseases is omitted.
Some Treatment options such as “Chemotherapy and Radiation therapy”.
Virus infection such as (COVID-19, Epstein-Barr virus, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, HIV/AIDS)
Some infections by bacteria such as Typhoid.

What can decrease the number of White cells or prevent body from making them adequately?
If you have malnutrition and/or don’t get enough of certain minerals and vitamins that needed to produce healthy white blood cells.
Some jobs include acts that causing low WBC such as who works in the radiological fields.
Drugs that may decrease WBC counts include anticonvulsants, antihistamine, antithyroid drugs, arsenicals, barbiturates, chemotherapeutic agents, diuretics and sulfonamides.
Antibiotics That decrease WBC include: Penicillins and other beta-lactam antibiotics have been previously associated with reductions in ANC/WBC resulting in neutropenia.
Some Autoimmune diseases can lower WBC

How to reverse low WBC?
To let the body corrects WBC on its own you must stop the actions and medications that lowering WBC especially if you’re not further need them.
Enriching your diet to give the body its need to produce more white cells such as: fish, eggs, poultry, beef, milk, Greek yogurt and beans.
Addition of a multivitamin or supplement with vitamin B12 and folate can powerfully enhancing the white blood cells production as well.
A doctor may prescribe Growth factor therapy – Treatment derived from bone marrow that can stimulate white blood cell production.

does hcg in blood confirm pregnancy test?

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Does hCG test confirm pregnancy?

The short answer is Yes, hCG blood tests are used for confirming the results of “at home urine pregnancy tests”, and there’re many reasons why urine pregnancy tests may fail to present accurate pregnancy detection.

Why Pregnancy test in urine are not accurate for detection of pregnancy?

In fact, hcg hormone, the principal pregnancy hormone are secreted within a week after successful inoculation, therefore it can be detected in hcg blood tests within a week of pregnancy while it takes another week to increase in amount to the level it can be detected in urine pregnancy tests.
Thus, using pregnancy home tests to detect hcg hormone in urine is accurate and sensitive but it’s not specific enough to detect only hcg but could be prune to interference of other biochemicals in the urine as well as if the woman has urinary tract infection it can show false positive (faint purple line) in the urine pregnancy test.

Do you need hcg blood test to confirm positive pregnancy test in urine?

Yes, you must confirm positive urine pregnancy test if the second line is faint and not clearly colored blue or purple, that’s because the faint test line in the pregnancy strip could be a sign of very early pregnancy detection or can be a sign of interference. in other words you must get two distinctive lines n the pregnancy strip to make sure it’s real pregnancy.

Conclusion:
While at home pregnancy tests uses urine samples which is non-invasive and cheaper than blood test, but in some cases, the urine pregnancy tests give false or unclear results for many reasons, therefore, you must get tested in blood for hcg pregnancy test to confirm the finding in the already done urine test.

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Q: Can prostatitis misunderstood as soft lesion |do we need to go for biopsy?

Question: My dad’s age is 75 |after getting severe uti PSA total was 41| after 4 weeks it came down 10.85| we did mri. It was pirads 3| can prostatitis misunderstood as soft lesion |do we need to go for biopsy?? My dad has moderate enlarged prostate but no issue in urinating. Takes several blood pressure medicine.

Answer:
Priad3 in MRI is a moderate score which means equivocal likelihood for prostate cancer.
Thus Pirad3 lesions can be seen with cancer (<5%) and benign prostatitis (>90%) as well.
UTI usually causes the PSA to temporarily elevate and can be corrected with antibiotics, in this case the PSA went down but still in the grey zone which means moderate risk of prostate cancer.
Any risk degree for prostate cancer must be checked, free PSA % and DRE are helpful tools especially if MRI imaging isn’t clear like this.

Recommendations:
Short-term follow-up imaging is advised for these patients, less than 6 months.
Do biopsy if PSA free% is lower than 25%, Positive DRE, with PIRAD3 MRI.
Treatment and management must be done with expert doctor in such cases.

a lab report showing the conclusion of results "satisfactory".

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Q: What Does word “Satisfactory” results mean?

Hi what does mean that’s

a lab report showing the conclusion of results "satisfactory".

Answer:
When your results screen type “satisfactory”, then it’s simply means you have no bad findings and your results is just fine and you should not worry about harm or bad issues in your lab test results.
But, this is for the already done tests, while other tests you don’t take we still don’t know what they are yet.
Also, this doesn’t mean that your health is perfect as this flag is for the current test result.

It’s one of the terms used in the lab reports to help people simply know what the conclusio of there results, similar like using “A” letter before or after the final result values, read more about flags and alarms on test results.