Full blood count and coagulation screen?

Question

I keep bringing up bloody sputum so I am having blood tests tomorrow. I have already had chest x-rays and a sputum culture which both came back clear. What kind of things might these tests (full blood count and coagulation screen) detect?

Answer 1

The full blood count (FBC), sometimes referred to as a full blood examination or complete blood count, is one of the most commonly performed blood tests, as it can tell us so much about the status of our health. It is important for diagnosing conditions in which the number of blood cells is abnormally high or abnormally low, or the cells themselves are abnormal.

A full blood count measures the status of a number of different features of the blood, including:

    * the amount of haemoglobin in the blood;

    * the number of red blood cells (red cell count);

    * the percentage of blood cells as a proportion of the total blood volume (haematocrit or packed cell volume);

    * the volume of red blood cells (mean cell volume);

    * the average amount of haemoglobin in the red blood cells (known as mean cell haemoglobin);

    * the number of white blood cells (white cell count);

    * the percentages of the different types of white blood cells (leucocyte differential count); and

    * the number of platelets.

The explanation found on the link below provides the various components that are measured, and helps to demystify some of the jargon you may hear in relation to this blood test.

http://www.mydr.com.au/default.asp?artic...

Screening Tests

The traditional coagulation tests performed in clinical laboratories have been available for decades. The majority of such tests are functional end-point assays, in which a patient sample (plasma or whole blood) is incubated with exogenous reagents that activate the coagulation cascade, and the time until clot formation is measured. The clotting time of the patient sample is then compared to the clotting time of pooled normal plasma or whole blood to provide a standard measurement of the patient's hemostatic status.

Coagulation testing continues to gain importance as a means of identifying and assessing bleeding tendencies in patients' complex coagulopathies. But while conventional, laboratory-based tests may provide an accurate assessment of a patient's hemostatic status, they are difficult to perform. In addition, clinicians and laboratorians are challenged to provide coagulation test results in a timely manner and at very low cost.

More on coagulation in this link.

http://www.devicelink.com/ivdt/archive/9...