The effect of aging on the blood count.

There are age-related changes in the results of some tests, but in none is the normal value for the elderly sufficiently different from normal values for younger adults to permit the physician confidently to ascribe an abnormal result to age alone. In assessing the significance of abnormal results of hematologic tests in asymptomatic patients, it is particularly important to consider problems of major import, such as blood loss from the gastrointestinal tract. Anemia is the abnormality most likely to be encountered, and investigation of a marginal reduction in the hemoglobin level of an elderly patient may be rewarded with a specific diagnosis of a disease that can be effectively treated, at least for a time.