I interpret blood tests every day... and I struggle. I think every clinician does. You're correct in that you can't look at them without considering the individual, their illness(es,) medication and other things. And also we often look for trends rather than single readings. Regards your mild anaemia, I hope that your next set of bloods includes ferritin. You may want to start taking an iron supplement but get the the blood test first so as to not affect interpretation of the result.
I should also add that a lot of these are requested in groups. Requesting "U&E" will give markers of kidney function - sodium, potassium, urea and electrolytes with the eGFR being calculated based on the creatinine. A better calculation of kidney function is the Cockroft-Gault formula, but that's for another day. Your kidney function is lower than I would expect for a healthy man of your age but I would find it acceptable in someone receiving chemotherapy because, and you'll excuse the medical terminology here, chemo fucks everything up. It should recover post-chemotherapy.
Important note that I know that you know but bears repeating for anyone else reading this: your oncologist and their team are the experts and their advice takes precent over ChatGPT and over the advice of chaps like me who work in primary care. Our knowledge is broad but shallow compared to the experts in the given field.
Thanks Pete, and absolutely. The sad fact however is that I just won't get access to my oncologist to ask every question I might have (albeit I do have a phone call booked with my consultant on Monday, but that's mostly to discuss RT plans), but chatGPT, Google Scholar, etc. are at my infinite disposal. So I inevitably will use the resources I have.
Yes I have noticed that blood tests were requested in groups, usually with terms I don't understand. Again, I'm trying to make sense of stuff best I can, and hopefully concluding that I'm in as good a place as I can reasonably expect, and being as well looked after as I'd hope.
I interpret blood tests every day... and I struggle. I think every clinician does. You're correct in that you can't look at them without considering the individual, their illness(es,) medication and other things. And also we often look for trends rather than single readings. Regards your mild anaemia, I hope that your next set of bloods includes ferritin. You may want to start taking an iron supplement but get the the blood test first so as to not affect interpretation of the result.
I should also add that a lot of these are requested in groups. Requesting "U&E" will give markers of kidney function - sodium, potassium, urea and electrolytes with the eGFR being calculated based on the creatinine. A better calculation of kidney function is the Cockroft-Gault formula, but that's for another day. Your kidney function is lower than I would expect for a healthy man of your age but I would find it acceptable in someone receiving chemotherapy because, and you'll excuse the medical terminology here, chemo fucks everything up. It should recover post-chemotherapy.
Important note that I know that you know but bears repeating for anyone else reading this: your oncologist and their team are the experts and their advice takes precent over ChatGPT and over the advice of chaps like me who work in primary care. Our knowledge is broad but shallow compared to the experts in the given field.
Thanks Pete, and absolutely. The sad fact however is that I just won't get access to my oncologist to ask every question I might have (albeit I do have a phone call booked with my consultant on Monday, but that's mostly to discuss RT plans), but chatGPT, Google Scholar, etc. are at my infinite disposal. So I inevitably will use the resources I have.
Yes I have noticed that blood tests were requested in groups, usually with terms I don't understand. Again, I'm trying to make sense of stuff best I can, and hopefully concluding that I'm in as good a place as I can reasonably expect, and being as well looked after as I'd hope.