Hello, Today I received results from a d dimer test that came out at .58 (.4 being normal). What are the chances of it being a blood clot or worse? I read that this may be an indicator for something severe like cancer? Can the levels of d dimer indicate the likelihood of it being something severe? What are the chances of it being a fluke in the blood test?
Hello and thank you for sending your question. We use the d-dimer Test as a guide if we have clinical suspicion for a possible blood clot. In your case there must have been some reason which caused your doctor to order this blood test. I imagine your doctor has considered other testing for blood clots such as ultrasound of the legs or possibly a CT scan of the chest. It is extremely difficult to predict the probability of a blood clot with a mildly elevated test results which you have reported. What needs to be done is clinical correlation which means your doctor needs to consider the test results and the chance of additional testing to rule out possible blood clots. This blood test has no validity in diagnosis of cancer, so this result cannot be correlated to any cancer diagnosis.I would encourage you to discuss this test result with your doctor and review your current symptoms to see if your doctor thinks additional diagnostic testing is needed. Thanks again for sending your question.