I am currently pregnant with our fourth child. As a result, my blood was tested. The doctor said that everything was fine, but when we went over the results at home, we still saw that 2 values were outside the reference values. Now I can’t find any clear information about this on the internet. It’s about segmentation. neutrophils 71.7% (reference values tss 50 and 62) and lymphocytes 20.2% (reference values tss 25 and 40). Is this something I should be concerned about or is there nothing wrong?
Answer
The normal values for blood analyzes are usually established on a normal reference population of healthy individuals. In this group (often subdivided according to age and gender) people check what the measured values are. The interval (from low to high) of normal values that is then pushed forward then contains, for example, 95% of those sent. This means that 5% apparently sent fall outside the normal interval. It follows that if, for example, 20 different blood tests are performed on a healthy person, there is already a reasonable chance that a measurement result outside the normal interval will be obtained.
In addition, during pregnancy there will be a change from what is normal in healthy, non-pregnant women who have been tested for the establishment of the reference interval. It is known that during pregnancy the number of circulating white blood cells increases markedly, mainly the neutrophils. Absolute numbers are more important here than percentages: lymphocytes may decrease in percentage but are normal or even increased in absolute numbers compared to the reference values.
Interpretation of lab results must be done in the context of the specific person being tested and is more than comparing to a reference interval, your doctor is the best person to do this.
Answered by
prof. dr. Bruno Verhasselt
Microbiology and Immunology
http://www.ugent.be
.