What is the difference between O levels and N Levels?

What is the difference between lymph and absolute lymph levels- see question PLEASE?

• I'm really scared about my daughter's lab results. Her lymphs were 51 (H) but her absolute Lymphs were normal, 2.9. Also, her Neutrophils were 39, low, and her ferritin was low, which from what I've read means she's anemic. Her doctor did a lot of labs evaluating for Lyme disease and Celiac's disease. I'm not sure if he paid close attention to those things while he quickly went over the labs. I looked up the causes and Leukemia kept popping up as something that makes all those labs abnormal. So of course I'm panicing. But her absolute lymph levels were normal so I'm not sure what the difference is and what it means if one is high and one is low. Also, all her other CBC counts were normal- WBC's RBC's, Platelets, monocytes, etc. Can anyone give me some info and a website to find more information?

• Answer:

  CBC is usually done on an automated machine through flow cytometry. When the lab result has flagged it as high, a manual counting of the WBC differentials will be done. That will be the absolute lymphs. Since the absolute lymphs is normal, I would not worry about it because at times machines can make an error. Most of the time, cells are counted by its length and in cases like yours, it was miscalculated. Thus a manual counting was done (hence the absolute count result). As you say her ferritin is low, have you seen her hemoglobin level? Low ferritin can be caused by many different reasons like low iron intake, lack of B12 and so on. To confirm if your child is suffering from anemia, not only the hemoglobin, ferritin, transferrin as well as a blood film must be done to confirm if/or type of anemia your child is suffering from. I do not think your child is suffering from leukemia because a manual counting was done for her blood. Any abnormal cells like blast cells- an indicator of cancer, will be picked up. If you are really worried, you may request for a peripheral blood film done, and to do a manual counting of your child's WBC. Any abnormal cells will be reported and further evaluation will be done should anything arises.