WBC as a screen for heart disease?
There is an orgy of news stories reporting today’s release that an elevated WBC can predict heart disease:

Healthy women’s heart risk may be predicted by a $25 blood test commonly performed during doctor’s visits or before surgery, according to a study in the March 15 Archives of Internal Medicine.

Problem is, using a WBC to screen for heart disease is foolhardy – since many other diseases can raise the WBC, including infectious diseases, inflammatory disease (such as rheumatoid arthritis or allergy), leukemia, severe emotional or physical stress, or tissue damage (for example, burns).

That small fact is buried in the article:

Margolis isn’t suggesting routine screening of white-blood- cell levels just to measure heart disease risk. Instead, doctors should pay attention to the results that come routinely as part of prenatal care, surgical preparation and doctor’s visits . . .

Screening every woman with an elevated WBC for heart disease (i.e. with a stress test) simply isn’t feasible.

Related posts:

1. Why doctors should reconsider ordering a CRP to screen patients for heart disease
2. More Russert analysis
3. Should infants be screened for heart defects with pulse oximetry?
4. Will patients accept the limitations of prostate cancer screening?
5. Getting around pre-authorizations
6. Screening for ovarian cancer redux
7. My take: Tim Russert

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Tagged as: heart, surgery