Blood work: decrease in lymphocytes – is this a bad sign?
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Blood work: decrease in lymphocytes – is this a bad sign?

› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Blood work: decrease in lymphocytes – is this a bad sign?

  • Post
    • February 4, 2019 at 5:04 pm
    sing123
    Participant

    Hi all. Can I please have some feedback from folks who know about lymphocytes? 

    Both my lymph number and lymph percent have decreased into the abnormal low range. What is this indicative of? I have had 10 monthly treatments of 13 total on Opdivo. Prior to this, all of my lab readings have been in the normal range. Also, I do not have vitiglio, which some of you have said links to a positive outcome on the Opdivo. 

    I have opted against radiation at this time (just haven't been able to update my profile!) so that is not a contriibuting factor of the low reading. 

    Thanks so much,

    Cindy

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  • Replies
      • February 4, 2019 at 8:42 pm
      mrsaxde
      Participant

      Hi Cindy,

      Definitely a question worth posing to your oncologist. My lymphocytes have run low for a while now, and none of the doctors at NIH, Johns Hopkins, or my local cancer center have expressed concern about it to me. But that's just my experience. Ask your doc and see what he/she says. If it's not a concern, I'd be interested in hearing why not.

      -Bill

        • February 6, 2019 at 1:55 pm
        sing123
        Participant

        Bill, I certainly will ask him at my next appointment and let you know. Thanks for replying.

      • February 5, 2019 at 3:16 pm
      Bubbles
      Participant

      Hey Cindy,

      No one test, no one sign or symptom – is the end all, be all in melanoma.  For instance, vitiligo developed  with immunotherapy is an excellent prognostic sign.  However, lots of folks never develop vitligo and go on to do very well, both in terms of response and survival.  Lots of lab values are interesting and even predictive, but mean very little in and of themselves.  As far as lymphocyte counts – they mean very little on their own.

      Here's a post that breaks down that component and is a lead in to the fact that the NLR, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, is a more valuable data point than the lymphocyte count alone:

      https://chaoticallypreciselifeloveandmelanoma.blogspot.com/2015/06/lab-values-that-may-predict-response-to.html  

      Here are a zillion posts on NLR:  https://chaoticallypreciselifeloveandmelanoma.blogspot.com/search?q=NLR  

      That said, like vitligo, a low NLR correlates with better outcomes in many melanoma patients.  HOWEVER, it is not an end all, be all.  We ain't got one of those yet!!!  Hope this helps.  Celeste

        • February 6, 2019 at 1:57 pm
        sing123
        Participant

        Celeste, I always greatly appreciate you. Thanks very much for your response and link to more information that you've put together for us!

      • February 6, 2019 at 5:53 pm
      ed williams
      Participant

      Hi Cindy, I will not attempt to go into blood values and what they predict, not my area of interest. There was an interesting article last year from some Harvard researchers on the topic of blood biomarkers (see following link) as well I am going to give you a link to Dr. Jason Luke talking about state of research into how they can predict who might resond and where that research is at. A lot of that is based on Pd-L1 status of tumor and Interferon gamma levels, in the video it gets good at the 10:00 mark and right up to about 24:00 min it talks about what they are finding and how it may help direct treatment in the future. I hope you enjoy the video, it took me a few times to pick up all the terminology that Dr. Luke is using, pretty interesting stuff. Best Wishes!!!Ed https://jitc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40425-018-0328-8

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