What does “Bands, absolute” mean in a CBC blood test?
This gives you the total number of immature neutrophils, called bands, expressed as cells per microliter of blood. The white blood cells are classified in five major groups: Neutrophils Lymphocytes Monocytes Eosinophils Basophils The numbers of the different types of cells normally occur in the order given above; the most abundant are neutrophils and the most infrequent are basophils. When a complete blood count (CBC) is performed, the total number of white blood cells (WBC) is one of the reported components. It is expressed in the number of cells in a microliter (mcL or uL, the u represents the Greek letter mu) of blood. The old unit of volume measurement was a cubic millimeter (cmm); there is no practical difference between a microliter and cubic millimeter. The commonly accepted range for the total white cell concentration in a healthy person is between 3.8 to 10.8 thousand cells per microliter. When a CBC is performed, each type of white cell is reported as a percentage of the tota
