2006-07-24 16:05:37 · 6 answers · asked by Mary M 1 in Health ➔ Diseases & Conditions ➔ Cancer
There is always cancer in your body, no matter who you are. A better test would be to see if you white blood cell count is high. If it is then there are other test to detirmine if it is cancer or not.
2006-07-24 16:08:23 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Platelets are interesting little cells with amazing functions - but I am not aware of any test that uses platelets to detect cancer.
Platelets are very susceptible to chemotherapy drugs so a lot of times a patient on chemotherapy will have a very low platelet count. The low platelet count does not correlate though with how much cancer has been destroyed. There are tests that can count platelets, but there are not very good tests for detecting how well the platelets you have are working. If you take a lot of aspirin you can have a normal platelet count - but none of them will work very well. The best practical test currently for platelet function is a bleeding time.
2006-07-24 23:37:37 · answer #2 · answered by petlover 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not sure what you are asking.
CBC will check your platelets to see if there are any abnormalties.
The peripheral smear will check to make sure there are no weird shapes or sizes in your blood.
If there are abnormalities then bone marrow biopsy checks your cells for cancer in the bone marrow, followed up by electrophoresis to check what kind of cells there are actually.
I hope this answers your question.
2006-07-24 23:08:51 · answer #3 · answered by PreviouslyChap 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can always do a CBC to see how many platelets you have but this don't tell you anything about whether you have cancer or not.
2006-07-24 23:07:51 · answer #4 · answered by happydawg 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes
2006-07-24 23:09:20 · answer #5 · answered by Willnotlietoyou 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There probably is- but I doubt there'd be an at-home test for that. A doctor could probably do one.
2006-07-24 23:09:00 · answer #6 · answered by Michael G 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋