General Clinical Haematology

The commonest reasons for referral to the general clinic are the finding of abnormalities on the blood count or symptoms experienced by the patient that the referring doctor thinks may be caused by a disease of blood, bone marrow or sometimes the lymph nodes.

The kind of abnormalities in the blood count include the following.

• Anaemia - low haemoglobin or red blood cells
• Leucopenia - low white cells
• Thrombocytopenia - low platelets
• Polycythemia - too many red blood cells
• Leucocytosis - too many white blood cells
• Thrombocytosis - too many platelets

Many people referred to these clinics worry that they have a cancerous illness. This will be true for some, but the majority of patients referred to the general clinic do not have cancer.

All patients being seen in the clinic will be discussed with a consultant and most will see a consultant on their first visit.

Often additional investigations are required to help to make a diagnosis. These may include additional blood tests, and some patients will also need X-rays, scans and/or a bone marrow test.

If these tests are requested the patient will be seen with the results. Many patients can then be discharged from the Haematology Department, but some will need further investigation and treatment in a clinic specific for the type of illness which has been diagnosed

Haematology is not only a laboratory but also a clinical discipline. It is concerned with patients who have disorders which primarily affect the haemopoietic system just as

patients may have disease of the gastrointestinal tract, of the nervous system, or of the heart. It is accepted that patients in the last three categories are best cared for by the gastroenterologist, the neurologist, and the cardiologist. In Europe and in America the patient with a blood disorder is cared for by the haematologist. But in Great Britain the development and evolution of haematology services has resulted in a

haematologist whose orientation has been primarily to the laboratory. The major factor responsible for this has been the tendency for the laboratory services to be lumped together

as clinical pathology. The provision of a haematology service was often the responsibility of the bacteriologist or the morbid anatomist, a responsibility often exercised through a junior

colleague. It is only since the evolution of clinical pathology into four separate and distinct disciplines that departments of haematology have emerged and the haematologist has been

accepted as a consultant in his own right.

Media Contact: 
Allison Grey 
Journal Manager 
Journal of Clinical chemistry and Laboratory Medicne
|Email: jcclm@molecularbiol.com