What do my lymphocyte phenotyping lab results mean?

[A.B.]

CD3+ (T lymphocytes)                      49% (55-86)
CD3+ / CD4+ (T helper lymphocytes)        34% (37-55)
CD3+ / CD8+ (cytotoxic T lymphocytes)     12% (16-37)
Ratio CD4+ / CD8+                         2.8 (1.0-3.0)
CD19+ (B lymphocytes)                     17% (2.0-18.0)
Surface immunoglobulins:                  polyclonal
Ratio kappa/lambda:                       1.4
CD3- / CD56+ (NK lymphocytes)             31% (2.0-30.0)

What does the "CD3- / CD56+" notation mean by the way? Is this a ratio (if so, why is this not specified)?

 

[Valentijn]

What does the "CD3- / CD56+" notation mean by the way? Is this a ratio (if so, why is this not specified)?

I think the notation is used to represent the prevalence of lymphocytes expressing a certain phenotype. CD3-/CD56+ is the phenotype being measured, but other possibilities would be CD3+/CD56+ and CD3+/CD56-. From what I understand, the CD56+ is almost always present on Natural Killer cells, so a high percentage of CD3-/CD56+ lymphocytes indicates elevated NK activity.

It sounds like low CD3-/CD56+ would be an indicator of Lyme disease, which can be useful if it has messed up the immune system badly enough that it's not detected in other manners. But I'm not sure how specific that is to Lyme.