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Old 05-02-2009, 08:26 AM
glenntaj glenntaj is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Queens, NY
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glenntaj glenntaj is offline
Magnate
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Queens, NY
Posts: 2,857
15 yr Member
Default Nah, I'm here.

Took a little while to identify, but as I suspected, these are both subtests doen in a white blood cell count and differential.

The PMN is short for polymorphonucleocytes, another name for neutrophils, the most common type of white blood cell. The LYM is short for lymphocytes, the second most common type. ABS stands for absolute count, which the docs pay more attention to than the relative percentages of each type (unless the latter are way out of whack). Your precentage figures are resulting from your relatively low in the reference range number of lymphocytes, so they make up a relatively low percentge of your white blood cells and the neutrophils are correspondingly higher.

These findings are fairly inspecific--although many people with autoimmune disease tend to have lower lymphocyte readings. One theory as regards this is that the lympocytes are busy infiltrating/attacking other bodily tissue adn there are therefore fewer of them measurable in any given volume of serum.
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