Medical tests are a critical part of diagnosing and treating illness and disease. Many of these diagnostic procedures require patients to undergo blood tests. These tests help to efficiently and quickly diagnose disorders and diseases such as high cholesterol, diabetes, thyroid problems and prostate problems.
Benefits
Many diagnostic tests are simple and fast to perform at the office of a family physician and reveal problems that may not have caused any symptoms in the body. Blood or other bodily fluids are taken and sent to a lab for analysis of specific factors. This allows a physician to diagnose or confirm disorders and diseases quickly and effectively and plan treatment preventing further damage to the body and even saving the life of a patient.
Method
A doctor or nurse will explain to the patient why a diagnostic test is needed and what it will determine. A nurse, medical student or assistant will then draw blood from the arm into vials, or have the patient give other fluids such as a urine sample. Specimens are then sent to a lab for analysis along with a lab test instruction from the doctor. The lab runs the tests and sends the results back to the requesting doctor within a few hours to a few days and the patient is informed of the results. In some cases a patient may visit a lab to have the blood test or have the test at a hospital.
Diabetes Tests
Tests to diagnose diabetes are among the most common medical tests. There are several tests that measure blood glucose and other factors to determine if a patient has diabetes. The American Association of Family Physicians explains that the fasting plasma glucose test and oral glucose tolerance test requires eight hours of fasting. The hemoglobin A1C assay test is another diabetes blood test that is routinely used to diagnose and monitor diabetes in patients. The A1C tests measure’s the long-term exposure of the blood to glucose giving the physician a better understanding of the patient’s overall health than other tests that measure only current levels of glucose. The AAFP notes that patients with an A1C level of at least six percent but less than 6.5 percent are more likely to develop diabetes.
Blood Cell Count
A complete blood cell count, CBC, measures the number, size and maturity of the different blood cell types in a measured volume of blood. This helps to determine illnesses and diseases that affect the production and destruction of blood cells. Abnormalities in a CBC test can indicate infection or a disease. For example, an infection causes the number of normal white blood cells to be elevated while cancers such as leukemia affect bone marrow function and cause an increase of immature white blood cells in the blood. Other disorders such as anemia and sickle cell anemia cause abnormally low levels of the oxygen-carrying protein hemoglobin in the blood.
Clotting Disorders
Diagnostic blood tests can be used to diagnose bleeding disorders. The University of Maryland Medical Center explains that a blood platelet count is used to diagnose and monitor clotting disorders. A prothrombin time test is used to analyze the clotting of the blood and to check anticoagulation or anti-clotting therapies.
Cholesterol Tests
Cholesterol tests are also called lipid profiles or lipid panels. These tests measure the amount and type of cholesterol or lipids in the blood. The MayoClinic.com underlines that this helps to determine the risk of heart disease and blood vessel disease in the body.
