How To Monitor Cancer Progress With Simple Blood Tests

Tracking Cancer Progress with Blood Labs 0:00

Hello its Dr. Michael Karlfeldt One of the greatest challenges that a lot of my cancer patients are facing is the question I'll just become. How? How do I assess to see my progress? Am I getting better? Am I getting worse? especially if the patients have had surgery and there's nothing, imaging. or maybe they, they don't want to do imaging that much, and they want to be able to have other tools to be able to assess if the treatment they're receiving, if it's benefiting them. or am I moving in the wrong direction.

And we need to pivot. So, it is amazing how much information you can get just from normal blood labs.

Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio 0:53

And, when I mean normal. Something simple as your CBC. Complete blood count, which is very, very inexpensive. you can then look at, you know, especially when you look at the absolute numbers of and neutrophils, lymphocytes and monocytes. So the ratios between those three tells tells a huge story. so the ratio between neutrophils and lymphocytes. So these are different components of of your white blood cells of your immune system. And so they should be in a certain relationship. And when that relationship is thrown off then we, we do get concerned and we start to think that it's a little bit more inflammatory, inflammation going on than we would like.

The immune system is a little bit more suppressed, and we're not able to battle the cancer the way we would like. So what should the numbers be? Well, the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio, we do want to see that one and between 1 and 2. So you take down the neutrophil absolute. And then you divide that by lymphocyte absolute. Or sometime you see it on your your lab as just kind of neutrophil hashtag or lymphocyte hashtag. And so you want to keep so let's say that your neutrophil number, let's say it's like 3.4 and then your, lymphocyte number is

Lymphocyte-to-Monocyte Ratio 2:26

1.8, you know, so then you would take them 3.4 divided by 1.8 and see what is that number. And that ends up being in between 1 and 2. So then you are in a good spot. frequently what I see is that, you know, when things are moving in the wrong direction, I see the neutrophil number, you know, start to increase and the lymphocyte number decrease. and so you can see lymphocyte number below one and maybe neutrophil, number, you know, above five six. So all of a sudden that ratio is very disproportional.

And that and then we know that we would need to pivot, would need to do something differently. then we're looking at the lymphocyte to monocyte ratio and that number for cancer patients. I like it at least above three. A lot of the studies out there show that you have a greater chance of survival if it is above three. I rather see it above 4.25 and even higher if we can. so again, they you would take them the lymphocyte absolute or hashtag divided by the a monocyte absolute and see what that is.

So let's say that you're in a good not in a good spot. And your lymphocyte number may be like 0.8 or 0.9. And then your monocyte number may be, like 0.5 or 0.6.

Inflammation Markers and Ferritin 3:59

So now we are looking at the number that is just slightly above one. So you're not even close to the number three, where the research shows that if you're battling cancer, you have a greater chance of survival. So then we need to then, yeah, we need to figure out what do we need to do in order to be able to boost the, the neutrophil number. you also can then tell a lot in regards to, you know, if you have your both this sort of fills and monocytes may be elevated. you may be thinking, you know, is there parasites that's there.

So you can, deduct a lot in regards to how those numbers, what they look like. so that is a very simple way, you know, just from a regular CBC then to assess, to see, and what direction am I going, it's going to be some small fluctuations up and down. But if you see trends moving in the wrong direction, then, and there's, it's good then to adjust your protocol, other numbers to look at. You have your inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, ferritin, set rate. those are good inflammatory markers to look at.

and also platelets, you know, frequently we see platelets as inflammation increases and that starts to increase or ferritin, you know, if it is, below, below 100, then it's probably just kind of what your iron storage is, which what ferritin is. But if it's start to really climb up, you know, three, 4 or 5, you know, 100, then all of a sudden we start to get concerned. And, and it may be then monitoring or measuring, inflammatory, effects within the body and what's going on within the liver. so then you, you're concerned, you keep watching that.

And same with fibrinogen and also said rate. You know, those on numbers you want to have in the normal range, to make sure that, you know, things are where they need to be. Another number to look at is LDH, you know, which has a lot to do with a lactate. And we know that, cancer, cancer cells, they produce energy through fermentation.

LDH and Circulating Tumor Cells 6:16

And during that fermentation process, they secrete a lot of lactate, you know, into a it's immediate cellular environment. And that lactate really promotes cancer growth, metastasis and the conversion of healthy cells to cancer cells. So the higher the LDH is, the more likely that process is taking place. So that's another number two to monitor. obviously also there are labs that do circulating tumor cells. And that can be very, very useful as well. to see, you know, is that number stable going down, going up.

the more circulating tumor cells that we have floating around in our body, the more likely, that there is a metastatic process taking place. So, we can then monitor, see, you know, am I again moving in the right direction at the therapies that I'm doing? Is that helping me to, to be less at risk? So these are things that you can, look at and, and then really follow your treatments, you know, depending on which provider that you have. I have a lot more information about this in my, in my book. You know, A Better way to treat cancer.

yeah. 500 plus page book. Yeah. Bigger format. That just shows how much information that's there. but it will go through a lot of that in there and in more detail. So, yes, I hope, I hope this gave you, you know, some tools to empower yourself on your journey.