Does a pet's full blood panel detect all diseases or need more tests?

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Bloodwork can be diagnostic. It can diagnose: diabetes, kidney failure, liver disease, thyroid conditions, it can make you suspicious for cancer, leukemia’s, immune conditions if anemic or low platelets, blood parasites, tick borne disease, some viral feline diseases. Sometimes the blood work does come back perfectly normal which rules out a lot of things but doesn’t give a diagnosis. Which then prompts further testing or diagnostics to try to get an answer. I’m not sure what is wrong with your pet. But we are here to help if you need us. I hope this helps!

The only blood test that I am aware of that could show evidence of heart disease would be a proBNP test. This protein increases when there is increased stress on the heart but there can be some false positives and a positive does not always mean heart failure or heart disease. When a veterinarian is suspicious of heart failure they may also recommend running a blood count and chemistry panel to help rule out infections and to check electrolytes and kidney values before starting treatment for heart failure.

That will depend on the lab offering the test. T4 checks thyroid function, Urinalysis (UA) checks for blood, white blood cells, specific gravity, bilirubin, glucose, protein, ketones, and urobilinogen, the results of all of these can tell whether kidneys, and liver are working properly and whether there may be a problem with your dog's metabolism. Here is information on the blood tests: https://www.petcoach.co/article/chemistry-panels-tests-for-pets/

I am sorry Fluffy has not been feeling well. It is possible that patients can have normal blood work and still have cancer. Sometimes cancer does not show up in blood work. Typically cancers that are locally invasive like the nose do not show up in blood work. The best option is to try and take skull x-rays or have a CT/MRI completed to look at the swelling to help determine the cause. Fluffy might have an infection causing facial swelling or infection around a mass. Unfortunately with out more information we cannot tell if Fluffy has cancer. I hope he feels better soon

Liver and kidney values (ALT, Alk Phos, GGT, BUN, Creatinine) are on Chemistry panels which can be ordered separately from Complete Blood Counts that measure neutrophil counts (elevated with infection), hematocrit (a measure of hydration status), platelet levels (an indicator of clotting function). I recommend asking your vet for pricing for just the Chem panel vs pricing for a CBC/Chem panel if desired. Good luck!

Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. I'm so sorry to hear Smudge was diagnosed with kidney issues. Unfortunately, a complete blood chemistry panel that includes a urinalysis is very accurate for kidney disease. If you have concerns about Smudge's diagnosis, I would recommend you reach out to Smudge's veterinarian to discuss what the findings were, and what steps may need to be taken. Good luck.

It may be cancer but it could also be an autoimmune disrase. More testing is going to be needed. Are the lymph nodes enlarged? If so, your vet needs to do an aspirate of the lymph nodes. That will give you a better idea of what’s going on.