Question

WHY??? 1) A physician would not diagnose leukemia on the basis of a single blood test because...???

Answer 1

They do not have enough information to automatically say "you have leukemia". so they would have to take multiple tests to reassure the diease.

Answer 2

A blood test is by definition a nonspecific test. Its function is to indicate if something is wrong and maybe give some clue as to what the doctor should look for. No blood test tells whether a person has or does not have leukemia, what he can do is give indicative of changes that characterize patients with leukemia, and even then, may be indicative of other diseases. It is known that a patient who presents the following table: thrombocytopenia, leukopenia and anemia need investigations to ascertain whether there is a possibility of him being with leukemia, but the specific examination and confirmatory of the disease is A BONE MARROW BIOPSY.

Answer 3

(sorry my english... brazilians are donkeys)

Answer 4

superfinn is right. A doctor wouldn't be able to get enough information out of just a blood test.

A person with leukemia would have a larger number of white blood cells, in their blood. Much more than normal.

The reason is because when our bodies are sick, they automatically produce more white blood cells, in order to fight the disease.

But really, if you have a large number of white blood cells, your body could be fighting ANY kind of disease. It doesn't necessarily mean leukemia.

The most IMPORTANT test that a doctor performs, in order to detect leukemia, is a "bone marrow biopsy."

A bone marrow biopsy is where the doctor takes a big, long, thick, and hollow needle,
and sticks it into your bone.
And then the needle sucks out a bit of your bone marrow, that's inside the bone.

The doctor can have that bone marrow checked out, to see if you really have leukemia.

Answer 5

thank you so much!

Answer 6

do you know why Blood tests can be used to determine which of the sites harbours the cancerous tumour ?

Answer 7

they can be haboured by either bone marrow or lymph nodes but how do blood tests determine which site harbous the tumour?

Answer 8

I really didn't know the answer to this question, so I did a bit of research.

Take a look at this article:
http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/testing/types/blood_marker

The article tells us that a doctor would be able to look at our blood,
to try to find specific proteins, and circulating tumor cells.

It tells us that cancerous cells produce a certain protein that can be detected in the blood. (I don't know which protein it is.)

But the more interesting thing that a doctor could look for is "circulating tumor cells."

Circulating tumor cells are cells that break off from the cancerous tumor,
and enter the bloodstream.

If a doctor were to find circulating tumor cells in the blood,
s/he could look at the cells,
and figure out which part of the body the cells originally belonged to.

Answer 9

thanks! and it`s due to the change of leukocytes.. if there are increased monocytes in the blood, the site is bone marrow.. if there are increased lymphocytes it is in the lymph nodes

Answer 10

Oh okay. So a doctor could also tell by looking at the specific types of white blood cells. Thank you for sharing that.