CLINICAL BIOCHEMISTRY

Clinical biochemistry is a branch of science that deals with laboratory and clinical medicine. Laboratory procedures and results helped a lot to solve the problems of clinical medicine. However, lab test are not conducted individually rather it is carried out in combinations. It is the choice of the physician to opt for the laboratory test in order to get traces and the reason for disease causative agents. This biochemical investigation helps in finding predisposition of pathogenic disease in individuals. According to the result of lab test, physician can provide treatment. It is obvious that physiological condition and response varies from individual to individual. The rule of clinical biochemistry is to consider test performance and diagnosis. Test are done to assess severity of specific disease, potential effective analysis of side effects that are associated with particular disease, prognosis and disease outcome. The result interpretation should focus mainly on disease process and individual profile of clinical medicine.

Types of error in clinical laboratory

Two major type of error in clinical lab are as follows.

• Random errors: Errors that arise due to pre analytical variables. For instance, identifying individual patient, labeling of samples, collection of samples, while handling, transporting the samples and machine device.
• Systemic errors: Errors that arise due to analytical variables. For instance, calibration error, sample impurity, reagents which are not stable, calibrators that are not stabilized.

To overcome this lab method should be monitored continuously with the help of quality control techniques.

Quality control process

Quality control assessment provides accurate results and helps in taking corrective action. Two types of quality control process are as follows.

• Internal quality control
• External quality control

Internal quality control Programme: One laboratory results are used to interpret the overall results. It helps in

• Clinical practice of individual suffering from disease
• Within assay variation
• Intra laboratory duplicates
• Predicting deviation by result interpretation

External quality control Programme: Several laboratory results are used to interpret the disease causative agent.

• It is devoid of reference controls
• Sent to reference lab for interpretation
• Close prediction of disease
• Revaluation in case of deterioration

Questions:

• Describe manual and automation practice in clinical biochemistry.
• What are the types of analyzers used in clinical biochemistry?
• How body fluid helps in biochemical investigation?
• What are safety precautions to be administered in clinical laboratory?
• How do you interpret the clinical biochemistry results?
• What are the types of quality control practice in clinical laboratory?