Blood Tests Which Help To Detect Cancer

Blood Tests Which Help To Detect Cancer

Blood Test Blood tests play a vital role in detecting any medical condition by simply drawing the blood from your vein and send to a laboratory for the results. The skilled lab technician analyses the various types of cells and checks if the blood count is within the normal range or abnormal.

Several screening tests for cancer help in diagnosing the cancer cells and let us see the different blood tests available to detect cancerous growth.

Complete Blood Count Tests: Complete blood count tests measure white blood cell count, red blood cell count, Haemoglobin levels, Haematocrit, the mean corpuscular volume, and platelets count. In general, the nominal values differ from man to woman, for example, the haemoglobin level for an adult woman is between 115 to 160 grams per litre of blood whereas for an adult man it is between 130 to 180 grams per litre of blood. Thus, these compete blood count tests help in determining blood cancer if there are any abnormal cells found or any type of blood cell having too many or low blood count than the normal range. In addition to confirming a blood cancer, a bone marrow biopsy may be performed as well.

Blood Protein Testing People with multiple myeloma, a type of cancer can be detected by this blood protein testing. It helps to determine various proteins present in the blood and recognizes any immunoglobulins, the abnormal immune system proteins.

Tumour Marker Tests •

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Tumour cells produce a chemical known as tumour marker which is present in the blood. These tumour marker tests help to detect many cancer cells. Various cancers like prostate cancer which contains prostate-specific antigen, ovarian cancer which includes cancer antigen 125, thyroid cancer which includes calcitonin, a liver cancer that includes alpha-fetoprotein and for ovarian and testicular cancer which contains human chorionic gonadotropin to name a few.

There are also circulating tumour cell tests that are used to detect the cancer cells which are broken from the original site and floating in the various regions of the body through the bloodstream. However, few cancer conditions like breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer use this circulating tumour cell tests to determine the condition.

In addition to the above cancer tests, other blood tests may also be ordered by your doctor if he suspects that the cancer cells could have affected other parts of your body.

Urea and Electrolytes • To check the normal functionality of your kidney, these blood tests are conducted which determine the urea and electrolytes levels which in turn monitors the sodium, chloride and potassium levels.

Liver Function Tests • As the name indicates, your doctor may recommend an LFT test to determine if your liver is functioning well without being affected by the cancer cells. LFTs tests are helpful in determining the enzymes levels and protein that are produced by the liver. In addition, it also checks for bilirubin and albumin levels. • Thus, these are the blood tests for cancer that are conducted to determine any cancer cell growth in your body.

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