Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) is an enzyme found in almost every cell of your body—including your blood, muscles, brain, kidneys, and pancreas. Its job is to help turn sugar into energy.
Because LDH stays inside your cells when they are healthy, it should only be found in low amounts in your blood. However, when cells are damaged or destroyed by injury or disease, they "burst" and release LDH into the bloodstream.
The LDH Serum Test is a non-specific marker. This means a high level tells the doctor that tissue damage is happening somewhere, but it doesn’t tell them exactly where. It is often the first clue that leads to more specific testing.
