20-25/hpf rbc in urine means

20-25/hpf rbc in urine means

20-25/hpf rbc in urine means that 20-25 red blood cells were found in your urine at 400x magnification. The presence of this amount of RBCs in urine is not normal and can be due to:

· infection in the bladder, kidney, or prostate

· trauma

· vigorous exercise

· viral illness, such as hepatitis

· sexual activity

· menstruation

· endometriosis

More serious reasons people may have hematuria include:

· bladder or kidney cancer

· inflammation of the kidney, urethra, bladder, or prostate—a walnut-shaped gland in men that surrounds the urethra and helps make semen

· blood-clotting disorders, such as hemophilia

· sickle cell disease—a genetic disorder in which a person’s body makes abnormally shaped red blood cells

· polycystic kidney disease—a genetic disorder in which many cysts grow on a person’s kidneys (4)

If your test result shows “20-25/hpf rbc“, you may need further tests to figure out what is causing it. Talk with your doctor and remember the cause is mostly treatable.

* You can enter your lab test results online and get a personalized interpretation, including your condition in each test, definition, reasons for increased or decreased results, dietary and lifestyle recommendations, potential treatments, drug interactions, etc.

What does hpf mean?

HPF stands for the high-power field in microscopy and refers to the field of view under the maximum magnification power of the objective being used. In fact, each microscope has two types of the lens; the objective, and the eyepiece. We can calculate the magnification power of the microscope by multiplying the magnification power of the eyepiece by the magnification power of the objective lens.

So if an objective lens with a magnification of 10x is used in combination with a 40x magnification eyepiece lens, would project an image of the specimen magnified 400x, abbreviated as HPF (3).

 Red Blood Cells (RBCs)

Red Blood Cells (RBCs) are the functional component of blood which are made in the bone marrow. They bring oxygen to the tissues and release carbon dioxide into your lungs for you to exhale (1).

The presence of red blood cells in the urine is not typical. It’s medically termed hematuria and can be a sign of an underlying health issue. In fact, hematuria is defined as the presence of more than five RBCs per high power field (HPF) in a centrifuged urine (2).

References:

1. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/21691-function-of-red-blood-cells
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780323048835500088
3. https://www.shanghai-optics.com/about-us/resources/technical-articles/introduction-to-microscopes-and-objective-lenses/
4. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/urologic-diseases/hematuria-blood-urine