Clinical biomarker studies seldom follow recommendations for the evaluation of new biomarkers. Therefore it is important to assess any published clinical value of a biomarker or comparison of two or more biomarkers and see whether or not the published study applies to your situation. If the published study does not...

Test results, essential for quality healthcare, constitute more than 70% of patients’ health records. Because quality results are so important, governments around the world mandate a series of laboratory practices to ensure quality.  All laboratories in the United States follow the Clinical Laboratory Improvement...

Frequent blood glucose measurement is one element of the routine intensive monitoring that all critically ill patients receive following admission to intensive care units. Transient increase in blood glucose concentration (hyperglycemia) is very common in this patient group.  The significance of this so called stress...

Arterial blood gases are frequently useful in the clinical management of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to assess both oxygenation and acid-base status.   A recent review article focuses on disturbance of acid-base in these patients, which occurs in advanced disease when pulmonary gas...

Around 25 % of blood samples recovered from patients admitted to intensive care and 8 % of those recovered from all other hospitalised patients would return a plasma sodium result 4-10 mmol higher than its true value if the method of analysis was indirect ion selective electrode (ISE). This is the headline finding of...

The anion gap (AG) is a calculated parameter derived from measured plasma electrolyte concentrations that is most frequently used to elucidate acid-base disturbances in the critically ill. It is defined as the difference between measured anions and cations in blood plasma and is calculated by subtracting the sum of...

According to the authors of a recently published study little is known of the clinical effects of abnormal plasma chloride concentration among the critically ill. Their retrospective study illuminates this apparent grey area of clinical knowledge.  The study involved retrieval and analysis of laboratory data,...

Preanalytical errors are quite frequent in the area of point-of-care testing (POCT). There are many reasons for that. First of all, POCT testing is usually performed by clinical staff (i.e. nurses and physicians), who are neither so skilled nor educated for laboratory work as laboratory professionals. Moreover,...

Despite the pervasive measurement of cardiac troponin (cTn) for the diagnosis of myocardial infarction (AMI) and acute coronary syndromes (ACS), the continuous evolution of assays and guidelines for their application has created uncertainty among laboratorians and clinicians: criteria for the choice of assay and...

Reprinted and translated by permission of Läkartidningen from “Serumlaktat - användbar analys inom akutsjukvården”, by Bengt R Widgren and Monique Ekhardt, 2011; vol 108: 475-477. Copyright 2011 by Author, Läkartidningen and AB Typoform, Sweden.Translated by Radiometer Medical ApS. In emergency care triage, diagnosis...