Can A Regular Blood Test Detect Cancer Cells?
I was just wondering, cos i have to had regular blood tests for my Iron defiency Anaemia.
And when they found i had it they wern’t even looking for it.
So i was wondering if it can happen for anything else.
Can it be found in you’re blood randomly?
Or when you are looking for it thats when you will find out if someone may or may not have cancer.
Thanks .x.
There is no routine test to detect actual cancer cells in the peripheral blood. With hematological malignancies such as the various leukemias, we can see the cells in a blood smear under a microscope, but this represents only a minor fraction of all the different types of cancer. Also, I suspect that few physicians other than blood specialists actually look at the blood smears when a CBC is done. It is time consuming. Looking at blood smears was something I did when I was in practice, but that is largely old school now. Complete blood counts are almost always automated now, and the machines cannot discern cancer cells like a trained doctor or a very good lab technologist.
As noted by another answerer, there are a number of tumor markers for various types of cancer, but these are not actual cancer cells showing up on a blood test.
A regular CBC would indicate levels of red blood cells (which you are low on if you have anemia), white blood cells, platelets, hemoglobin, hematacrit….. They may see something out of wack there and it is a good indicator of some sort of problem.
This type of blood work would not pick up something like cancer. There are specialized blood tests to look for what are called tumor markers in the blood that may indicate cancer.
you usually cant do that
but with developing technology of today
they are working on it and almost have some clinical tests ready in the us
check out this linkhttp://www.pslgroup.com/dg/1d1b8a.htm
about your anaemia,
thats really easy to find
when they test blood you have your red blood cell component
which composes of your haemoglobin, plasma and so on.
with anaemia your levels of haemoglobin will be rreally low
and thats easily found.
what you wouldnt find is your iron level if you say it was iron deficiency anaemia.
you would have to ask for ferritin level if you wanted to know that