Is 3.4 high or something I should worry about ... - CLL Support

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Is 3.4 high or something I should worry about for my lymph absolute blood work? My red blood cell count was 5.29 and my vitamin d came back

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Is 3.4 high or something I should worry about for my lymph absolute blood work? My red blood cell count was 5.29 and my vitamin d came back 27. I am really nervous this could mean something serious.

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Hi Basketball1986,

I see that you have just joined this community and it appears that your reason for joining is primarily because you have noticed a higher than you expected absolute lymphocyte count (ALC). As you can see from the below references, your ALC is within the healthy range.

labtestsonline.org/tests/co...

medicalnewstoday.com/articl...

Your red blood cell count is slightly above the upper reference range limit of 5.1, but 5% of the healthy population fall outside the reference ranges. Further, anaemia, corresponding with a low red blood cell count and low haemoglobin, could be a possible sign of CLL, NOT a high red blood cell count.

Low vitamin D counts are common, particularly if you have been spending more time inside. There are several different units used for vitamin D, so I can't comment on where your result fits. See: mayocliniclabs.com/articles...

Normally you will see an asterisk '*' or a 'H' or 'L' against an out of range blood count result. Given the above references, you should not see any indication that your ALC is of concern. Further, as you can see from the references, there are many possible reasons why an ALC can be outside the reference range. Blood cancers are rare cancers. CLL is the most common leukaemia/lymphoma diagnosed in older people (median age of diagnosis is 71), yet is is still considered an orphan disease.

For a diagnosis of CLL, you need to have an ALC over 5.0 and confirmation that most of the lymphocytes are monoclonal, i.e. cancerous. That requires another blood test, where Flow Cytometry is used in an immunophenotype blood test to both check for monoclonal lymphocyte cells and if they are found, to determine which lymphocyte is over represented when specific markers used to categorise the actual blood cancer.

If you have no other health symptoms, such as soaking night sweats, easy bleeding or bruising (unlikely as you haven't reported low platelets), swollen nodes, unexpected weight loss or terrible fatigue, then I would say that your concerns about having CLL can be safely dismissed. By all means do check with your doctor if you remain concerned. If they have any concerns, they would arrange a repeat blood test in a month or so and check for any trends. One off unusual blood test results are common.

Neil

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