Modern laboratories help doctors and their patients monitor their health - today in almost any large settlement there is a medical center that conducts the most common tests on high-quality laboratory equipment. It is no secret that most often in these health facilities clinical trials are performed - blood and urine tests.
Changing laboratory indicators - an occasion to see a doctor
A clinical blood test necessarily includes determining the quantity and qualitative composition of the formed elements of peripheral blood - red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets are examined. The performance of a particular patient is reduced or not - only a qualified doctor can answer, because many diagnostic laboratory complexes used to conduct tests in a particular medical center have their own “normal” indicators, which means that a diagnosis made by oneself is often erroneous.
Attempts to consider one indicator in isolation from the rest can cause overdiagnosis of diseases, but also the reluctance to respond to the fact that a patient has white blood cells, red blood cells or platelets below normal often leads to the development of advanced cases of pathology of the body. A qualified doctor will be able to suspect something was wrong on time and refer his patient to a thorough and comprehensive examination, the purpose of which is to establish the correct diagnosis and prescribe, if necessary, treatment.
What is the evidence of platelet changes in a clinical blood test?
By tradition, most often the attention of a doctor and a patient is attracted to red blood cells (red blood cells) and white blood cells - white blood cells. Even if platelets are lowered in a clinical blood test, symptoms of this condition usually appear only when such a decrease reaches a significant value. In this case, the patient may experience spontaneous hemorrhages or “bruises” with minimal trauma, bleeding, but more often such complaints become a manifestation of the functional inferiority of these peripheral blood elements.
Even significantly reduced platelets (while maintaining their functional abilities) may not manifest clinically. In modern clinical medicine, the “norm” indicators have changed significantly, and those data that were considered pathology several years ago now fit into age standards. Nevertheless, one should not pay attention to a decrease in the number of platelets, because the number of these blood cells in the vast majority of cases indicates a pathology of the bone marrow or diseases of the spleen. It is in these organs that reproduction, maturation and differentiation, as well as the utilization of platelets of the human body occur.
If platelets are reduced. Do I need to do something?
In the event that when performing a routine clinical blood test it is found that the platelets are lowered, the patient is recommended, if possible, to repeat the study in another laboratory. When repeating episodes of thrombocytopenia, it is mandatory to consult a qualified hematologist who can outline a program for further examination of the patient. No need to try to independently restore the number of platelets in the peripheral blood - modern hematology does not have clinically reliable methods for increasing these shaped elements using a diet, vitamins or drugs.
In those cases when platelets are reduced to critical values, a transfusion of platelet concentrate obtained from donated blood is necessary, but only a doctor should decide on such therapy. At the same time, an examination is conducted, the purpose of which is to identify the true cause of this condition.