Question

A white blood cell count is often done when patients present to their doctor for an illness.

How does knowing the relative value of the white blood cells help to identify disease states?

Give an example by choosing a disease and indicating which type of white blood cell would be higher than normal.

Explain why this would be the case.

Answer 1

White blood cells are an important component of bodys immune system. we can identify the state of disease condition by knowing the white cell count in the body. for example, if any microorganism enter in to the body, the body initiate immune response by producing different kind of WBC to fight against them. So the level of WBC count will be increased in the blood. This indicate an infection in the body. In the same way, if the WBC counts are less, it indicate that the immune system is not able to produce needed amount of WBC or the infected organism is desroying them. this helps the doctors to identify the cause of symptoms and state of the disease condition.

For example, Neutrophils are one of the major portion of WBC which helps to fight with infections . They are the first line defenders against infectious organisms by phagocytosis. In thyroiditis the thyroid is infected by some bacteria or virus which cause symptoms like inflammation and swelling . These symptoms are due immune response. that is, infection activate the immune system to produce more neutrophils by the born marrow. These neutrophils go to the affected thyroid tissue and fight against the invaded microorganism by phagocytosis (engulfing ) and reduce the infection. Thus the  neutrophil count will be high during this disease condition.

Mostly neutrophil count will be high in acute infections.