# A Cheat Sheet on How We Interpret Bloodwork



## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

So if you've ever gotten bloodwork on your dog or cat back and wondered what the heck all those things mean, this is kind of a nifty little cheat sheet:

http://veterinarybusiness.dvm360.com/vetec/data/articlestandard//vetec/392011/740627/article.pdf


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## maggie fraser (May 30, 2008)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> So if you've ever gotten bloodwork on your dog or cat back and wondered what the heck all those things mean, this is kind of a nifty little cheat sheet:
> 
> http://veterinarybusiness.dvm360.com/vetec/data/articlestandard//vetec/392011/740627/article.pdf


 
Cheers for that link Maren !


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

Tx
btw, if i looked further online for some baselines to add with these defs, are they fairly well established and usually agreed upon by most vets, or do different vets have different opinions on what the "normals" are ?

should i assume they will be diff for canines and felines ?


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

As a disclaimer, like all references, this is more a set of definitions and not meant for diagnostic purposes. 

There are VERY broad ranges of "normal" for different species and even breed variations. In addition, which range is used to decide normal or not will also depend on the lab you are using and their equipment. So if I submit bloodwork on a patient to the university versus in house blood work versus a private laboratory, they all have different reference ranges specifically calibrated to their equipment. This is why I wouldn't recommend looking at your dog's bloodwork and saying "OMG, his X is one point too high, he must have Y so we must do Z!" Clinical pathology can be really tricky and hard to interpret (which is why we spend years on learning it and the physiology behind it in vet school). So the point of me posting this was in case you read a copy of your dog's bloodwork and wonder "what the heck is an eosinophil?" :smile:


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