My girlfriend has to take a physical for college. She is going to be a nurse, and would like to know everything about what the physical will cover. She does not take any illigal drugs or drink, so she doesn’t have to worry about anything.
She was wondering what the urine test for “HTC” means. She understood all of the other tests, but didn’t know what that means. A google search came up with HTC being a company and a part to a lawnmower (I think).
I thought marijuana was THC, so I told her I didn’t think that was it. She thought it might’ve been a test for steroids or something like that.
Anyway, thanks for any help in finding out what it means.
It’s HTc, which stands for haematocrit. It’s a method of measuring the volume of packed cells in the blood. Qadgop can probably give you more details about it. In any case, it has nothing to do with drugs.
Grrrrrr. I had meant to post that it appears to be either Htc or Hct. I’ve found sites supporting either abbreviation. Of course, if the test list specifically says it’s a urine test, then that’s not what it is anyway.
Well, as I said before different labs have different notations. However I’ve never seen anything other than hct used at any of the labs I’ve worked at. (Of course, they’ve all been in Ky. for whatever that’s worth.)
Out of curiousity I’ve perused the extensive listings in our reference lab books and couldn’t find anything that fit there either. Some sort of drug test does seem the most likely bet for an employment physical, based on the ones we do here anyway.
I just checked the abbreviation book we use at work (Medical Abbreviations: 24,000 Conveniences at the Expense of Communications and Safety by Neil M. Davis), and it lists several meanings for “HCT” (all in caps), one of which is hematocrit, and none of the others would make sense in the context of a routine physical, I don’t think.
IANAD but this would be a blood test (not urine), and related entries appear to imply some connection with leukemia.
Can any medical and/or lab worker enlighten us?
A completely unjustified and off-the-wall theory (I react to any mention of t-cells) is that this may be associated with a technique for screening susceptablity or exposure to HIV (without actually performing an HIV test). Will somebody please tell me that this idea is rubbish.
johncole
That definition refers back to the sort of tests done in a tissue-typing lab. More expensive and complicated than your average physical-type testing; the sort of thing done in the work-up of a disease diagnosis.
-a lab flunky
Hct or Hematocrit is a test that measures the volume of red blood cell mass in 100ml of plasma volume. It’s done by placing a sample of blood in a glass tube and spinning it around in gadget called a centrifuge. This separates the cells and the plasma.
It’s used to differentiate types of anemias by size and colour of the cells.
BTW, must add. A doc almost never requests just hematocrit-just CBC-complete blood count. I worked in a blood bank/lab-hematocrit was never to my memory ordered separately.
You must be a young 'un then. Never had to draw up a sample of blood in a capillary tube, seal it, and spin it, to determine the hematocrit? Hell, I even took the Buffy coat off the top for micro analysis!
