Whether you visit a doctor because you’re not feeling well, or you’re attending a standard wellness checkup, your provider may express a desire to have a blood panel performed.

If you’re not familiar with blood paneling, you may be curious about what blood paneling does and why it’s an important part of the diagnostic process.

Let’s take a look at what blood paneling is and the significance of having blood panels conducted.

What Is Blood Paneling?

Blood paneling is a series of blood tests performed by a laboratory. These tests are conducted for a variety of reasons, including routine health checkups and diagnostic procedures to pinpoint the cause of a patient’s illness.

To initiate a blood panel, a patient would visit their doctor’s lab or an independent diagnostic lab to have a blood sample drawn by a phlebotomist. Depending on the tests that will be performed, one or several vials of blood may be taken. In other situations, a simple fingerprick may be all that’s needed to run certain tests.

Once the blood has been drawn, it is processed through a variety of testing equipment so that medical professionals can interpret the characteristics of the patient’s blood. When the necessary characteristics have been determined, the laboratory in charge of conducting the blood tests creates a blood panel report for the patient and their doctor to review.

The Significance of Blood Paneling?

Blood testing can reveal disorders in the blood, illnesses, deficiencies, infections, and issues within the immune system.

The importance of the most common types of blood paneling can shed light on potentially life-threatening health concerns, as well as determine ways that individuals can improve their wellbeing. For example,

• Complete Blood Cell Count: This panel allows doctors to take a close look at different features of a patient’s blood, including red blood cells, white blood cells, hemoglobin, platelets, and mean corpuscular volume. Each of these tests can provide valuable information about the health of a patient’s blood.
• Metabolic Panel: This panel can have a number of tests involved, including CO2, coagulation, hCG, cholesterol levels, enzymes, and more.

Blood testing has been studied extensively, and as such, medical professionals have determined normal ranges in blood panel results. If the results of a patient’s blood paneling come back abnormal, medical professionals can run further tests and evaluations to determine the exact issue a patient is experiencing.

A person’s blood carries with it a map of their health. Having a blood panel performed can make a world of difference in determining whether an issue has occurred in the body, dietary changes are needed, or whether an individual is in optimal health.