• Question: What can be seen in blood tests that helps you come up with results/answers?

    Asked by anon-235745 to Greg on 9 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Greg Heikel

      Greg Heikel answered on 9 Mar 2020:

      There are 100s of different tests that can be done! For example you can look for the DNA of a particular bacteria or virus to see if someone is infected. There are also tests that can tell us if someone’s kidneys or liver or any other organs are working properly, we can test the blood sugar levels of diabetic people to see if their diabetes is being properly controlled and we can test to see if someone has had a heart attack. About 80% of the time someone is ill, blood tests are used to help the doctors make a diagnosis of what’s wrong!

Comments

  • Photo: Anthony

    Anthony commented on :

    I work in a microbiology lab looking for infection and looking at what antibiotic can treat it. Blood tests are used here to look for evidence of infection, this can be DNA or RNA from the infective agent.

    When we get blood culture samples to look for bacteria in blood, we gently heat it to body temperature and see what grows (sometimes up to 21 days as different bacteria take different times). We can then smear some of this blood on a slide to stain and can then see what bacteria are present! We then let the doctors know and can do further tests.