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Hospital Blood Tests

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wpqs

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I have regular blood tests at my local hospital and get copies of the report from my GP. I have a some question about the report:

  1. What do codes like XE2eD, XE2q9 mean? My GP didn't know. I presume they relate to a standard defining how the test was performed (types of reagents, etc) and its quality control. Where can I obtain full information about these codes?
  2. Why do the results not include a tolerance? For example, if my blood sample was split and sent to 10 different labs would they all report my Serum HDL cholesterol as 1.07 mmol/L or would some report 1.05 and others 1.09? This information would be helpful in analysing the results as a series. For example if the tolerance was +- 0.1 then a test performed in June giving HDL=1.07 should be interpreted as being the same as the previous test in January giving HDL=1.15.
  3. Why does the format of the report change so often? This makes it difficult for me to review series of results.

I appreciate this all sounds a bit nerdy, but given the vast cost of performing these blood tests it would be good to get the most value from them. Educating people about their results might encourage them to take steps to improve.
 
According to Carol's results here its the code for the type of test maybe?
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/understanding-cholesterol-levels.80102/

I would imagine that they would vary as indeed does cholesterol levels throughout the day.. it's not a static number a bit like blood glucose levels and probably has as many influencers.

No idea about the report format I just type all the results into a spreadsheet table which makes it far easier to analyse.
 
wpqs said:
I have regular blood tests at my local hospital and get copies of the report from my GP. I have a some question about the report:

  1. What do codes like XE2eD, XE2q9 mean? My GP didn't know. I presume they relate to a standard defining how the test was performed (types of reagents, etc) and its quality control. Where can I obtain full information about these codes?
  2. Why do the results not include a tolerance? For example, if my blood sample was split and sent to 10 different labs would they all report my Serum HDL cholesterol as 1.07 mmol/L or would some report 1.05 and others 1.09? This information would be helpful in analysing the results as a series. For example if the tolerance was +- 0.1 then a test performed in June giving HDL=1.07 should be interpreted as being the same as the previous test in January giving HDL=1.15.
  3. Why does the format of the report change so often? This makes it difficult for me to review series of results.

I appreciate this all sounds a bit nerdy, but given the vast cost of performing these blood tests it would be good to get the most value from them. Educating people about their results might encourage them to take steps to improve.
Click to expand...

For each test they will quote a reference range. As long as the measurement is within these limits it is not likely that a tolerance will be quoted.
 
bulkbiker said:
According to Carol's results here its the code for the type of test maybe?
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/understanding-cholesterol-levels.80102/
Click to expand...
Yeah, I agree with this, looks like they are just identification codes for the tests, I found some different ones on a post here: https://healthunlocked.com/thyroiduk/posts/133774899/understanding-blood-test-results
But very little turned up (where the code was actually there) when I googled one of said codes.
 
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