Help me with this differential diagnosis?

[sarahlindner]

I'm trying to do a worksheet just to refresh during the summer, and there's a section where you have to try to match a disease with given lab values.

Your choices are: CHF, SLE with pleuropericarditis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, nephrotic syndrome, lung cancer

I've already matched CHF, SLE, and nephrotic with slam-dunk lab values already so that's not a problem. But I'm left with trying to figure out what corresponds to pneumonia, TB, and lung cancer.

I've listed the abnormal given values below. Assume everything else is normal.

**Patient 1**

- WBC 16000 (81% neutrophils, 10% bands, 9% lymphocytes)

- Platelets 480,000

- Hemoglobin 11

**Patient 2**

- Hemoglobin 11

- Sodium 129

- Calcium 12.9

**Patient 3**

- WBC 13000 (81% neutrophils, 10% bands, 9% lymphocytes)

- Hemoglobin 8.6

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That's all we're given. I'm stumped. Thought pneumonia is the first one because of 81% neutrophils and because I've heard it can maybe present with elevated platelets... but I'm not confident on that. No idea about the rest.

What do you think?

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[Psai]

Patient 2 is pretty obvious but i don't gel like doing your hw for you

 

[jdh71]

it's never lupus

 

[Mad Jack]

Patient 2- Lung CA, which has a tendency to cause hypercalcemia.

That's the easy one, I'll let you have fun with the other two.

 

[neusu]

Closing thread. Read up for your HW OP.