I've been diagnosed with CLL once, then had it confirmed by a second specialist in the past few days.
I was interetested to see my lymphocyte count has gone down since it was last tested.
- Lymphocyte count was 9.7 on 11th July 2024, and 9.58 on 20th August
- White blood cell was 14.7 on 11th July 2024 and 12.94 on 20th August
I know these are small differences but just wondering if the scores sometimes fall, with CLL?
They can fall and go up again, some people's counts can bounce about (mine did). 9.7 and 9.58 is more or less the "same" count. I have had jumps from over 40k to 15k, 90k to 70k. The doctors look at trends over time. I would say that you can read this as your disease being "stable" over the course of the summer.
Mine has. Dropped from 5.68 at diagnosis to 2.9 at last blood draw. I have SLL so I think it's just the cancer getting comfortable in the lymphatic system.
Bigfoot
Wow, only if you are lucky so far as I know!
I am no expert, but I would venture a guess that if a person gave a blood sample in the morning, and then again in the same day afternoon, that you might see variances in the range of your tests. Your labs are so close in time that I wouldn’t necessarily conclude that your lymphocytes have actually gone down. Just having different hydration levels on the days you had tests might account for your variations.
Even using different equipment could cause slight variations. In the old days, cbc counts were done manually by smearing a stain and counting cells under a microscope. Now they use machines that are calibrated and give us instant results.
I would go so far as to say that if they took two different vials of blood from you at the exact same time, but used different machines to make both counts, that the results would not be exactly the same from one machine to the next.
I would think it would be hard to establish any real trend on two blood draws done a month apart. Your results would be much significant if your blood draws were taken a year apart. Of course it’s best to ask your doctor. My layperson guess is that you can’t draw much any conclusion, either way, based on a small variance that could have been due to so many factors such as the machine they used to count your cbc, your hydration level at the time of each draw, any infection one as, and different foods you had the days of your draws. I think even stress levels can cause small variances.
Good luck to you, whether its just a testing variance or not, its certainly not bad news to see labs trend back towards normal.
All kinds of changes in ALC over time are possible with CLL, Your "change" is too small to be considered as other than stable. Test instrument repeatability is typically +/-0.5, so you could test the same sample of blood with a true result of 10.0 and measure counts of between 9.5 and 10.5.
Neil
Hi do not be afraid . my lymphocytes count was around 280k in 2017/2018 and was 38460 in February this year then 83500 in June ( never had treatment )
I hope new decrease !!
Phiphi
Hoping so for you too
Yes, they do. These small differences are negligible.
yes , they may fall , the count depends on the time they take the samples and also there is a variation in the accuracy of the machines.
I was diagnosed in 2013 with a WBC of 40. It went as high at 60 in the next few years but then just started dropping. My WBC at my last appointment in June was 19. I am still on watch and worry and have never had treatment. So yes, it is completely normal for your counts to go up and down. I think doctors look more at the trend over time than any one specific result.
The phrase "watch and worry" is very apt!
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