How to Read Lab Corp Test Results Afp
At a Glance
Why Get Tested?
To help diagnose and monitor therapy for certain cancers of the liver, testicles, or ovaries
When To Get Tested?
When your health care practitioner suspects that you have certain cancers of the liver, testicles, or ovaries; at intervals during and after treatment for i of these cancers; sometimes when you have a condition that increases your take chances of liver cancer, such every bit chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis
Sample Required?
A blood sample fatigued from a vein in your arm
Exam Grooming Needed?
None
You may be able to discover your exam results on your laboratory's website or patient portal. Yet, you are currently at Testing.com. You may take been directed here past your lab'south website in order to provide you with background information most the test(due south) yous had performed. You will need to return to your lab'south website or portal, or contact your healthcare practitioner in order to obtain your test results.
Testing.com is an award-winning patient education website offering information on laboratory tests. The content on the site, which has been reviewed past laboratory scientists and other medical professionals, provides general explanations of what results might mean for each examination listed on the site, such as what a high or depression value might suggest to your healthcare practitioner about your wellness or medical condition.
The reference ranges for your tests tin be found on your laboratory study. They are typically plant to the right of your results.
If y'all do non have your lab report, consult your healthcare provider or the laboratory that performed the examination(s) to obtain the reference range.
Laboratory test results are not meaningful by themselves. Their meaning comes from comparison to reference ranges. Reference ranges are the values expected for a healthy person. They are sometimes called "normal" values. By comparing your test results with reference values, yous and your healthcare provider tin can run into if whatever of your test results fall exterior the range of expected values. Values that are outside expected ranges can provide clues to help identify possible conditions or diseases.
While accurateness of laboratory testing has significantly evolved over the past few decades, some lab-to-lab variability can occur due to differences in testing equipment, chemical reagents, and techniques. This is a reason why so few reference ranges are provided on this site. Information technology is important to know that you must use the range supplied past the laboratory that performed your examination to evaluate whether your results are "within normal limits."
For more than data, delight read the article Reference Ranges and What They Mean.
What is being tested?
Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is a protein produced primarily by the liver in a developing baby (fetus). AFP levels are normally elevated when a infant is born so decline chop-chop. Outside of pregnancy and birth, liver damage and certain cancers can increase AFP levels significantly. This examination measures the level of AFP in your blood.
AFP is produced whenever liver cells are regenerating. With chronic liver diseases, such every bit hepatitis and cirrhosis, AFP may be chronically elevated. Very high concentrations of AFP may be produced past certain tumors. This characteristic makes the AFP test useful as a tumor mark. Increased amounts of AFP are establish in many people with the most common type of liver cancer called hepatocellular carcinoma and in a rare type of liver cancer that most commonly occurs in infants called hepatoblastoma. They are as well found in some people with cancers of the testicles or ovaries.
AFP exists in several different forms. The standard AFP test is for a total AFP, one that measures all of the AFP forms together. This is the principal AFP test used in the United States.
One of the AFP forms is called L3. The AFP-L3% test is a relatively new test that compares the corporeality of AFP-L3 to the full amount of AFP. An increase in the percentage of L3 is associated with increased risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma in the almost future and of having a poorer prognosis, as the L3-related cancers tend to be more aggressive.
Among people with depression full AFP, AFP-L3 tin can be higher in those with hepatocellular carcinoma than in people with benign liver diseases. Tumor markers including full AFP and AFP-L3 are used in addition to ultrasound for surveillance of hepatocellular carcinoma in Japan. This exercise is different from that in the U.South. and Europe, but the two tests are occasionally ordered past wellness care practitioners in the U.S.
Common Questions
How is the examination used?
Blastoff-fetoprotein (AFP) is used every bit a tumor marker to assistance notice and diagnose cancers of the liver, testicles, and ovaries. Though the examination is often ordered to monitor people with chronic liver diseases such as cirrhosis, chronic hepatitis B or hepatitis C considering they take an increased lifetime risk of developing liver cancer, most current guidelines exercise not recommend this use. A wellness care practitioner may club an AFP examination, along with imaging studies, to try to detect liver cancer when information technology is in its primeval and almost treatable stages.
If you accept been diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma or another course of AFP-producing cancer, an AFP test may exist used to help monitor your response to therapy and to monitor for cancer recurrence.
An AFP-L3% is sometimes as well ordered to compare the corporeality of the AFP grade called AFP-L3 to the total amount of AFP. The AFP-L3% test is not withal widely used in the U.South. only has gained wider acceptance in other countries such as Nihon. The exam is used to help evaluate the risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma, specially if you accept chronic liver disease, and also to evaluate the response of your hepatocellular carcinoma to treatment.
When is information technology ordered?
A healthcare practitioner may order an AFP blood test:
- When it is suspected that you have liver cancer or certain cancers of the testicles or ovaries; cancer may be suspected when, for example, lumps are felt in the abdominal expanse during a physical exam or when imaging tests notice possible tumors.
- When yous take been diagnosed with and treated for a cancer of the liver, testicles, or ovaries and are being monitored for the effectiveness of treatment
- When you are being monitored for cancer recurrence
- To follow up when you have chronic hepatitis or liver cirrhosis
An AFP-L3% is sometimes ordered to help evaluate the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma when you accept chronic liver disease or to test the effectiveness of treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma or monitor for its recurrence.
What does the test result hateful?
Increased AFP levels may indicate the presence of cancer, virtually commonly liver cancer, cancer of the ovary, or germ jail cell tumor of the testicles. All the same, not every liver, ovarian, or testicular cancer will produce significant quantities of AFP.
Elevated levels may sometimes exist seen with other cancers such as breadbasket, colon, lung, breast, and lymphoma, although information technology is rarely ordered to evaluate these atmospheric condition. Other diseases such equally cirrhosis and hepatitis tin besides cause increased levels.
When AFP is used every bit a monitoring tool, decreasing levels point a response to treatment. If AFP levels subsequently cancer treatment practise not significantly decrease, normally to normal or virtually normal levels, then some of the tumor tissue may still be present.
If your AFP levels brainstorm to increase, and then it is likely that the cancer is recurring. Nevertheless, since AFP can be increased in hepatitis or cirrhosis, AFP levels can sometimes be misleading. If your AFP levels are not elevated prior to handling, so the test volition not generally exist useful to monitor the effectiveness of your treatment or to monitor for recurrence.
When you have chronic liver disease and your AFP levels go from normal or moderately elevated to greatly elevated, your risk of developing liver cancer increases. When total AFP and AFP-L3% are significantly elevated, so you have an increased risk of having or developing hepatocellular carcinoma in the next twelvemonth or ii. Withal, both AFP and AFP-L3% concentrations can be elevated, and fluctuate, when you take chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis. In these cases, a sharp increase in AFP is more important than the actual numerical value of the examination result.
Is there anything else I should know?
Not every person with increased AFP and AFP-L3% examination results has cancer or volition develop liver cancer. The AFP and AFP-L3% tests are not diagnostic per se; they are indicators. They must be used in conjunction with information from your medical history and physical exam as well as histopathological examination and imaging studies to look for the evolution of tumors.
Although these tests can provide useful information, they are non every bit specific or sensitive every bit healthcare practitioners would wish. AFP can temporarily increase whenever the liver is injured and regenerating, and moderate elevations can be seen with a variety of conditions. Because of this, AFP testing cannot be used solely to diagnose cancer. In addition, not every cancer volition produce AFP, and then you could even so have cancer even when the AFP is normal. For these reasons, the AFP test is non used to screen the general population for cancer.
AFP is not only a tumor marker. Considering AFP is produced by the fetus, levels are normally higher in pregnant women and in their newborns.
What are the take chances factors for liver cancer?
This cancer unremarkably occurs when y'all have chronic scarring of the liver, called cirrhosis. Nigh commonly, this is caused by chronic infection from one of two viruses: hepatitis B or hepatitis C. Alcohol abuse as well increases the take chances of developing cirrhosis. Some inherited diseases, particularly a disorder called hemochromatosis (in which the body absorbs too much iron, which gets deposited in liver among other organs), can cause cirrhosis and, in time, hepatocellular carcinoma, every bit can non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is fat deposition in the liver, along with inflammation and damage.
If my AFP is abnormal, do I need other tests?
If you have chronic liver infection or damage and your AFP suddenly rises, or if information technology is very elevated, your healthcare practitioner will usually ask for a report to look at your liver, such as an ultrasound exam, a CT browse, an MRI browse, or a biopsy for histopathological evaluation of tumor tissues. The scans can commonly spot liver cancers if they are present. Your health care practitioner may also guild a blood test for des-gamma carboxy prothrombin (DCP), which is also known every bit prothrombin induced by vitamin Thou absence-II (PIVKA-II), to assistance notice and monitor liver cancer.
Tin can an AFP test exist performed at home or in my healthcare practitioner's office?
AFP is not available equally a home test and it is not typically performed in a healthcare practitioner's function. Testing is done by either a hospital laboratory or a reference laboratory.
View Sources
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