Urgent Help! Can SomeOne Help Me with Lab Values?

ChocoholicRN · Oct 26, 2008

I never learned this in nursing school, how to calculate different parts of blood counts? And why on earth would you need to calculate this? When you get a patients lab values you get all of them, lymphocyte, monocyte, even ones you didn't know existed? I'm just curious why you're teacher is making you calculate this stuff? Seems like a waste of time IMHO. Wish I could help you though, sorry.

leslie :-D · Oct 26, 2008

never learned how to calculate ranges, only to memorize them.

believe monocytes were 2-8%...

there are no absolutes for these differentials.

you will find these ranges vary from lab to lab, therefore, are approximations.

leslie

GilaRRT · Oct 26, 2008

I never learned this in nursing school, how to calculate different parts of blood counts? And why on earth would you need to calculate this? When you get a patients lab values you get all of them, lymphocyte, monocyte, even ones you didn't know existed? I'm just curious why you're teacher is making you calculate this stuff? Seems like a waste of time IMHO. Wish I could help you though, sorry.

Really? We had to learn this in nursing school. At least the basic implications. Actually, this was taught in my year of A&P prior to the core nursing classes. Chances are you may have forgotten with all the other information you had to learn. lol Not a waste of time at all.

First, look at the WBC. Obviously, 16.58 is elevated. However, this is just a general snap shot of the immune system. It simply tells us the immune system is working. However, an elevated WBC without additional data does not help us.

Hence, the manual differential.

There are five basic WBC types:

Neutrophils

Lymphocytes

Monocytes

Eosinophils

Basophils

Each type of WBC performes a different job. I am too lazy to type it all up. So, we can look to see what type is elevated to give us more information about what the immune system is doing.

Sometimes the WBC's are measured in %. So, if you were too add up the values of the 5 WBC types, they should equal about 100%. This is also called the relative number of cells.

Sometimes, we calculate the absolute value of these WBC's. To do this, we take the % and multiply that by the total WBC. I could try to throw out values; however they vary according to age, sex, and other factors. I simply do not have the time type it all up. An absolute value can give us a better picture however.

Instead, let me give you a link that will help:

http://www.brooksidepress.org/Products/OperationalMedicine/DATA/operationalmed/Lab/WhiteBloodCellDifferentialCount.htm

In addition: if the neutorphils are elevated. (Typical of a bacterial infection.) You may see something called bands and segs looked at.

Bands are immature neutrophils. If you have allot of bands this means an acute bacterial infection. Your body is like an army. What happens when the Army starts to loose? Children to the front line please. The body starts throwing these young cells out to fight the war. Segmented neutrophils are

mature cells. The normal range varies; however, I always remembered that if you have more than a six pack of bands, you have a significant infection. Bands greater than 6.

Virgo_RN, BSN, RN · Oct 26, 2008

We had to learn all that stuff. But for some reason, I never considered posting on an internet discussion forum as a valid study technique. I'd look it up in my lab book and think it through for myself.

GilaRRT · Oct 26, 2008

I agree; however, it seems that the OP is confused about relative versus absolute counts and how to calculate the absolute count.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Oct 26, 2008

you can look up specific information about a blood count and white cell count and differential on the 3 websites i've posted below if you do not have a lab reference book. they are also posted in the medical disease information/treatment/procedures/test reference websites thread in the nursing student assistance forum (https://allnurses.com/forums/f205/medical-disease-information-treatment-procedures-test-reference-websites-258109.html):

medicine net procedures & tests a to z index http://www.medicinenet.com/procedures_and_tests/article.htm
web md index list of tests http://www.webmd.com/a_to_z_guide/medical_tests.htm
lab tests online http://www.labtestsonline.org/

you will get more helpful responses to this kind of question if you post on the student forums.

hnt1987 · Oct 27, 2008

Sorry. Here are the values

WBC - 16.58 High

Neutrophil - 79.6 High

Lymphocyte - 12.6 Low

Monocyte - 5.1

Eosinophil - 0.4

Basophil - 0.4

Absolute Neutrophil - 13.20 High

LUC - 1.8

Can you help me Gila???

GilaRRT · Oct 27, 2008

What exactly are you trying to find? Did you look through the links and information posted? What are you having continued difficulty understanding?

blondy2061h, MSN, RN · Oct 27, 2008

The formula you posted in your OP is just part of the ANC- absolute neutrophil count. The ANC is what determines if a patient is neutropenic, or not, essentially, as you could have a high WBC (like 40,000) but if they're all blasts, you can still be neutropenic. As far as I know, there is no way to "calculate" a lymphocyte count, you just need to go with what they give you in the differential. The differential just represents what percentage of the WBC each type of cell makes up.