This time in our health by numbers/tests series, Dr Shital Raval takes a look at our platelet count that can be determined by a routine blood test. If the platelet count is high or low from the normal range, it can provide insight into various abnormalities and blood disorders including infections and cancer.
A platelet count test is conducted to check the number of platelets in the blood. This test is usually a part of the CBC or complete blood count. Here is a look at what platelet count…
Stories
On International Childhood Cancer Day, Poonam Bagai, Founder Chairman of Cankids...Kidscan, a family support group for children suffering from cancer and their families, talks at length about how hard it is to tackle the medical and emotional wellbeing of a child who learns to grapple with reality through various stages of his treatment. 1. What are the objectives of Cankids? CanKids...KidsCan is a National Society for Change for Childhood Cancer in India & YANA (You are not Alone) -…
Research has shown that hypnosis and hypnotherapy can help alleviate symptoms of many medical conditions. Read Lesli Berggren’s first-hand account of how she stood in awe as she watched her son hypnotize his agonizing pain away, without medicines. My son Nils Berggren, age fourteen, had beaten stage 4 lymphoma. However, his life threatening problems continued because of the required stem cell transplant he had received at the National University Hospital in Singapore, where we lived. We moved…
World Lymphoma Awareness Day 2016 Vandana Gupta, a Lymphoma cancer survivor, decided to put her difficult phase in life to bring help and support to good use when she founded V Care, a support group for Cancer patients in Mumbai. Here, for Lymphoma Awareness Day she addresses questions by PatientsEngage: What are the barriers to receiving the right treatment for lymphoma? A lack of awareness of the symptoms for Lymphoma often gets it confused with TB. On top of that, there are not too…
Give blood. Give now. Give often. On World Blood Donor Day, Dr Nikhil Nasikkar, a frequent blood donor, points out the acute shortage of blood in our hospitals and implores potential donors to donate blood generously to save people who die every year due to its scarcity. Most middle and low income countries have low blood donation rates. I first donated blood on my 19th birthday. My friends were pestering me to cut a cake and throw a party. But I am not much into…
Donate Blood. Save Lives. Can you donate blood or platelets? How should you prepare before a blood or platelet donation and what care do you need after a blood donation. All in one place. Dr. Shital Patel explains. Eligibilities for Blood Donation Must be currently in good health with no active infection. Donor must be between 18-60 years of age. Donor must be no less than 45 kgs in body weight. Donor’s haemoglobin level must be no less than 12.5g/dl for females and 13.0g/dl for males.…
Jane Prior of the Bone Marrow Donor Programme, Singapore takes a closer look at the myths and misconceptions surrounding the impact bone marrow donation may have on your own health. First, we need to understand why we need to donate blood stem cells. Certain diseases destroy bone marrows or cause it to not function normally. As bone marrow is crucial in the production of blood, this may lead to the endangerment of one’s life if the bone marrow is not working properly. Myth 1:…
Diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma The doctor will take your case history, carry out physical examination and recommend laboratory tests and imaging studies. Physical examination focuses on the location and size of all palpable lymph nodes, abnormal lung sounds, and enlargement of liver, spleen, or both. Laboratory studies The doctor may recommend the following: Complete blood picture: may be normal in early stages but in advanced stages there may be either decrease in the red blood…
Treatment of Hodgkin's Lymphoma The choice of treatment of HL is based on the stage at presentation and prognostic factors. Today, the most widely used approach is a combination of chemotherapy with radiation therapy. This approach yields a greater than 90% cure rate. Early-stage (stage I-II) favourable disease is treated with short term chemotherapy with ABVD (Adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine) or BEACOPP or Stanford V regimen. Radiation therapy (20-30 Gy) usually 2 to…
Risk factors for Hodgkin’s lymphoma The risk factors for Hodgkin’s lymphoma are infectious agents, immunity and genetic susceptibility. Infectious agents: Prior Infectious mononucleosis (IM) infection and Measles virus (MV) infection has been recognised as a risk factor for HL. People with HIV infection are more prone to develop Hodgkin’s lymphoma and this along with Kaposi’s sarcoma is considered as AIDS-defining cancers. This means that if a person with HIV has one of these cancers, it can…
