Are you ignoring Bold letter Blood Reports?

Are you ignoring Bold letter Blood Reports?

Most commonly the CBC or Haemogram or GMP

Know your blood

• Lets pick low WBC today
• Leukopenia is the scientific term for having a low white blood cell count.
• Chemotherapy is the most common reason for leukopenia among cancer patients.
• Leukopenia treatment depends on how often you’re getting sick.

Reasons for low wbc

• Either the body not making enough
• Or external contributors such as infection, is destroying them
• When older people develop low white blood cell counts, it’s usually because of something else, such as leukemia, Myelodysplasia, Bone Marrow Suppression . Naturally occurring reasons for leukopenia are far less common

So not necessarily infection?

• No. Not unless you’ve been fighting it off for a very long time.

Are there any other possible causes of leukopenia?

• Yes
  • Genetic benign ethnic neutropenia
    • Counts are naturally lower sometimes called as Duffy-null Associated Neutrophil Count (DANC)
  • Where malaria is prevalent
    • people with benign ethnic neutropenia also lack a certain receptor on the surface of their red blood cells, malaria can’t even get into them. It gives them natural immunity.

Symptoms of leukopenia

• Fever-
  • important to see your doctor quickly if you develop a fever during cancer treatment
• Cancer treatments-
  • During cancer treatments, your body can’t always fight off infection in the same way it normally would

Treating leukopenia

• Growth factors
  • filgrastim are available that can stimulate the bone marrow to produce more white blood cells
• Treating frequent infection differently than noncancer cases
  • Common cold

Critically low wbc

• A “dangerously low” blood count is more about symptoms than numbers
• See your doctor as soon as

Courtesy– The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center