CBC Differential: What does PMN% and LYM% mean?
 

I had some recent bloodwork done, and my
PMN% was 72.2 ( high) range ( 50-70)

LYM%20.1 ( considered low) (25-40)

my ABS PMN was 4.8 ( 1.5-7.8)
my ABS LYM was 1.3 ( 1.0-4.5)

I called my dr and the nurse said that they look more at the ABS numbers and that I was ok, yet, the lab highlighted that I was high and low in the Pmn% and LYM %. What does this mean and stand for? I am usually good at figuring things out, but I don't know. If all they look at is the ABS numbers, why run the others?

thank you. Jess:)

You might want to ask Glenn about this over at PN forum.
He is really good with test results.

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.