High VSG blood test .- The erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) or erythrocyte sedimentation rate is a blood test that was commonly used as a pattern of inflammation. However, it is a non-specific test that can be high due to both physiological and pathological processes.
Today, ESR has been replaced by more specific markers of inflammation, such as C-reactive protein (CRP). However, it is still used in many places as a complement to the interpretation of a clinical case, never as an isolated test.
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What is VSG?
The erythrocyte sedimentation rate is a measure of the time it takes for the red blood cells to drop or fall in a tube or capillary . Specifically, it is modified whenever there is a humoral imbalance that affects the plasma proteins, accelerating before an increase in the proportion of fibrinogen (which covers the erythrocytes together, forming piles and precipitating them) or globulins. In this sense , the fall of the red blood cells accelerates when an electrostatic imbalance occurs in the surrounding environment.
High VSG blood test. What does it mean?
As mentioned at the beginning, the ESR is a totally nonspecific test , so it should always be evaluated in conjunction with the clinical history and other analyzes to give it a diagnostic or prognostic value.
Basically the rate of globular sedimentation can have diagnostic value as a sign of:
- Organicity , that is, of injury or somatic damage.
- Activity , that is, aggravation or vice versa of an organic reaction.
- Generalization , which means communication with the bloodstream of a process or disease of any kind. In this sense, ESR is normal in inactive or strictly local processes.
Pathological causes of high ESR
Any infection or disease that causes an inflammatory process will accelerate the ESR, which is why it is considered non-specific. Examples would be: anemia, rheumatoid arthritis, heart attacks, neoplasms, renal failure, vasculitis, autoimmune processes.
Physiological causes of high ESR.
- In pregnancy from the 2nd or 3rd month and during the puerperium.
- In the infant of a few months.
- The old age
- The menstruation.
- An excessively hot bath can alter the ESR.
Normal values ??of VSG.
Ranks increase their limit with age, but roughly they would be:
- Men : up to 15 mm / h.
- Women : up to 20 mm / h.
- Children : up to 10 mm / h.
- Newborns : 0-2 mm / h.
- Pregnant : 40 mm / h to 45 mm / h.
