The downside of oxygen therapy examined in critically ill children

Should bicarbonate be used to treat metabolic acidosis?

Frequent point-of-care creatinine measurement in the critically ill allows early prediction of AKI

Evidence of a potential role for D-dimer and Procalcitonin testing used to assess comorbidities of patients hospitalized with COVID-19

Accurate estimation of in vivo blood glucose concentration is potentially compromised by in vitro glycolysis, the temperature- and time-dependent enzymatic metabolism of glucose by blood cells after blood is removed from the body.  For more than 40 years it was recommended that in order to avoid the potential problem ...

In health, plasma total calcium concentration is maintained within the approximate reference interval: 2.20-2.60 mmol/L (8.8-10.4 mg/dL), so that hypercalcemia (increased blood calcium) is defined as plasma total calcium greater than 2.60 mmol/L (10.4 mg/dL). The two most common causes of hypercalcemia are malignant...

Pregnancy is associated with significant anatomical and physiological change in order to both accommodate and sustain the developing fetus. As this literature review article written by two Australian obstetricians makes clear, pregnancy-associated physiological change affects the blood concentration of a range of...

One of the most significant developments in laboratory medicine over the past few decades has been application of point-of-care testing (POCT). Technological advance allows an ever-increasing repertoire of in vitro diagnostic and monitoring tests to be performed outside the laboratory, at the patient’s bedside, in the ...

One of the utilities of arterial blood gas analysis (BGA) is to assess patient blood oxygenation status. The two principal parameters generated during BGA that allow this assessment are: partial pressure of oxygen in arterial blood (pO₂(a)) and the percentage of functional hemoglobin in arterial blood that is...

Disturbance of blood calcium concentration is a common feature of many critical illnesses; prevalence studies suggest for example that 50-85 % of patients admitted to intensive/critical care have some degree of hypocalcemia (reduced blood calcium concentration). So monitoring and correction of blood calcium, where...