Biochemical tests, patient information

Vulnerability of the liver to injury necessitates routine evaluation of hepatic function in patients and asymptomatic individuals to avert or control adverse clinical conditions. Thus, a plethora of methods has been developed for the diagnosis of liver diseases and dysfunctions. One such method uses physical palpation to determine alterations or changes in the orientation of the liver, which provides valuable information about the organ status but the quality of information is subjective and imprecise [3]. Another common method for the diagnosis of more serious hepatic injuries involves liver biopsies coupled with biochemical tests to determine the extent of liver injury and prognosis [4-7]. However, in acute and some chronic hepatic disorders, dynamic and continuous hepatic function monitoring would be advantageous. 

Patient 1 Patient Information Name/DoB/unit number Anna Bell, 27 years old Diagnosis (type/cause) (if known) Unknown drug induced Relevant biochemical tests ... 

Although biochemical testing is important in the assessment and management of a patient with a fluid and electrolyte disorder, it is no substitute for keeping accurate fluid balance charts. Documentation of a patient s fluid intake and output throughout the day gives the clinician valuable information about the patient s state of hydration. 

SMA 12/30, and later the SMA 12/60 were considerably improved in design and analytical performance. The introduction of the SMA was heralded by the company with three reasons why it should be used. The first was analytical convenience, exception analysis was inconvenient and uneconomic. The second was that the unsolicited information produced by the equipment led to new or additional diagnoses unsuspected by the clinician. The third was that the preliminary discretionary tests could be completed within hours of the patient s admission to hospital rather than the days required by the usual process of discretionary analysis. The combined results were called a biochemical profile. In biochemical profile it was postulated that we had a combination of discretionary analyses, grouping of tests, and screening, as well as analytical convenience. 

As stated in Section 3.1, biochemical considerations make it necessary to use tests that are capable of indicating the presence of unusual esterase types rather than merely the levels of enzyme activity. However, different methods of esterase typing for use in anesthesia may yield different depths of information. Most often the purpose of the test is to document for future reference the cause of a prolonged effect of succinylcholine after recovery of the patient. This is usually a fairly simple task. By con-... 

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