What Does High Reticulocyte Count Mean?

Posted on Thu, 1 Jun 2017

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Thu, 1 Jun 2017 Answered on

Thu, 22 Jun 2017 Last reviewed on

Question : I had a retic panel done recently and my % was high at 2.95% and the Recticulocyte ABS was high at 152.8. My blood pressure lower also around 100 over 70 and when I get a cut it tends to bleed quick and is harder to get stopped without pressure applied. Is there anything I should be worried about?

Answered by Dr. Indranil Ghosh (3 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Need to correlate with anemia

Detailed Answer:
Hi
Thanks for your query.

Retic count is normally high if hemoglobin is low as the body tries to compensate by producing more cells. So we need to look at the hemoglobin in you and adjust the retic count as per that. If it is still high, we need to investigate further. Otherwise, we just try to improve the hemoglobin with supplements.

Regarding the bleeding propensity, it is best to get bleeding time and coagulation tests done. If they are normal, then nothing to worry.

Blood pressure varies from person to person and for some, 100/70 is the normal.

Hope this helps.
Regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Yogesh D

Follow up: Dr. Indranil Ghosh (46 minutes later)

My hemoglobin A1C test were at 5.2% which were in normal ranges.

And my rectic hgb was 34.6 which is within the norm

Answered by Dr. Indranil Ghosh (3 hours later)

Brief Answer:
HbA1c is different

Detailed Answer:
HbA1c is for diabetes and of no importance here. Hb can't be 34.6, it might be the PCV which suggests Hb to be around 11-12 gm/dl.

If PCV is normal, then we should look for causes of blood breakdown. Few more blood tests may be done, like blood smear picture, Coombs's test, Thalassemia carrier detection, etc to see of there is excess blood breakdown. Even if there is, that is likely to very mild as PCV is maintained well.

So overall, no major concern here.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar