Medical

From the Consultant Haemato-Oncologist at King’s to my GP June 10, 2011

Dear Dr M

I reviewed Lord Avebury in the clinic today with his wife. He was well in himself and I note that he had pulmonary angiogram carried out by Dr MacCarthy recently on 3rd February 2011 which showed no evidence of pulmonary embolus with some evidence of emphysema, but no evidence of lymphoma. He is otherwise reasonably well and his haemoglobin has slowly increased and is now back to the levels in early 2010 prior to his EVAR procedure.

The only other thing of note is that his platelet count has been elevated above the normal range ever since his diagnosis in 2006, normally ranging between 500 and 650. However, today his platelet count was 937 and it is unclear to me why this has elevated so much. In view of his previous TIAs, I would like to see Lord Avebury back in clinic in one month rather than six months, so that we can repeat the full blood count and carry out a JAK2 screen to ensure that he does not have an underlying myeloproliferative disorder to account for his raised platelet count.


Note: Myoproliferative disorders refers to a group of slow growing blood cancers, including chronic myelogenous leukemia, in which large numbers of abnormal red blood cells, white blood cells, or platelets grow and spread in the bone marrow and the peripheral blood.