Page 4 - Clinical Biochemistry 08PB804

Chapter 1:
Introduction to Clinical biochemistry
Outlines
• Definition of Terms
• Types of laboratory tests:
• Identification of patients and specimens
• Body fluids and sampling

Clinical biochemistry (also known as clinical chemistry or chemical pathology) is the
laboratory service absolutely essential for medical practice or branch of laboratory medicine in
which chemical and biochemical methods are applied to the study of disease.

The results of biochemical tests may be of use in:

• Diagnosis of diseases.

• Follow-up of the treatment.

• Recovery from the illness (prognosis).

• Clinical trials of new drugs.

Definition of Terms

• Normally sterile site: sites in the human body that are normally free from organisms or
foreign material, e.g. blood, joint, brain, etc.

• Unsterile site: sites in the human body that generally harbor microorganisms, e.g. gut, oral
cavity, nose, skin, etc.

• Specimen: a sample of tissue (blood, urine, etc.) that may or may not contain organisms.

• Isolate: a population of organisms (bacteria) that has been separated from a mixture.

• Assay: A test to detect or quantify a substance in a sample.

There are over 400 different tests which may be carried out in clinical biochemistry
laboratories.

They vary from the very simple, such as the measurement of sodium, to the highly complex,
such as DNA analysis.