A Quick Guide for Clinical Biochemistry

Book excerpt: Finding a simple and step-by-step procedure to conduct clinical biochemistry-related analyses is a real challenge for many undergraduate, graduate students, researchers and technicians in universities and laboratories. Moreover, understanding the theory of the experiment, which is not provided in some currently available manuals, is a useful and essential requirement in the experiment for successful performance, accuracy and acceptable results. The book contains 14 chapters. The first three chapters describe essential clinical aspects in laboratory such as specimens used for clinical chemistry analysis and sample collecting methods with common sampling errors. In addition, the fundamentals and laboratory techniques commonly used for sample analysis such as centrifugation, electrophoresis, photometry, fluorometry, and chromatography are also covered in one separate chapter. The later chapters discuss the biologic basics of liver, kidney and heart diseases and the common enzymes measured to assess the function of these organs. Moreover, properties, diagnosis and analysis of vital minerals disorders such as iron, calcium, phosphate, zinc and magnesium are discussed in five different chapters. Hematological disorders related to nutrition and some case histories and comments are added in order to help students to analyze and interpret the lab results in proper way. The book also has a separate chapter with lot of case studies and their solutions for better understanding. This book will be a useful reference for new students, non-native English medicine and life science students as it relies on figures and diagrams that explain the concepts and diagnosis of diseases in a simple way. Therefore, this quick guide aims to provide and develop the basic practical skills in the users with simple steps to follow along with the theoretical explanation for better understanding. It is expected that this quick handbook will provide good tools and useful guidelines for the students and researchers as well.