Anemia is a common feature of critical illness and roughly a third of all patients being cared for in intensive care units are given red-cell transfusion. Although such transfusions are unequivocally lifesaving for some patients, e.g. the exsanguinating trauma victim, the benefit is less clear-cut for others.  There...

Hemolysis causes clinically significant bias in four of twelve parameters generated during blood gas analysis. That is the headline finding of a recently published study that is, according to the authors, the first ever to investigate the effect of hemolysis on blood gas analytes. Venous blood was sampled from nine...

By comparison with other patient data generated in clinical laboratories, arterial blood gas results are commonly perceived by students and junior clinical staff to be among the most difficult to understand and interpret. Help is at hand. In a recent, easily comprehended article the authors provide a logical stepwise...

Arterial blood gases (ABG), a clinical test that involves measurement of the pH of arterial blood and the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolved in arterial blood, is routinely used in the diagnosis and monitoring of predominantly critically/acutely ill patients being cared for in hospital emergency rooms and...

Diagnosing heart failure (HF) in patients presenting in primary care is difficult. Clinical assessment of symptoms and signs has limited sensitivity and specificity. NT-proBNP determination has been proven to be useful and accurate for ruling out the diagnosis of systolic HF, and some have even proposed different...

BACKGROUND: Hospitals in countries with public health systems have recently adopted organizational changes to improve efficiency and resource allocation, and reducing inappropriate hospitalizations has been established as an important goal, as well as avoiding or buffering overcrowding in Emergency Departments. AIMS: ...

Calcium is an essential mineral required for numerous biological functions. In circulation, calcium is found in three different fractions, anion-bound, protein-bound and free or ”ionized”. The amount of calcium in each of these fractions is dependent on the concentration of hydrogen ions, anions and plasma proteins....

Pulse oximeters, which are ubiquitous in nearly all areas of clinical care, provide the means for safe, non-invasive continuous monitoring of blood oxygen saturation. The validity of using pulse oximetry to assess patient blood oxygenation status depends on SpO₂, the parameter measured by pulse oximetry, being a...

The incorporation of CO-oximeters in modern blood gas analyzers allows rapid determination of the amount of carboxyhemoglobin in blood. This, in turn, allows rapid diagnosis of carbon monoxide poisoning, the subject of a recently published review.  This wide-ranging review article begins with consideration of the...

Extracellular (serum) potassium concentration is normally maintained within the approximate reference range of 3.5-5.2 mmol/L; this is important for normal cardiac function. Both reduced serum potassium (hypokalemia) and increased serum potassium (hyperkalemia) can, if sufficiently severe, be associated with...