CLINICAL LAB SCIENEC

Clinical Chemistry
CHAPTER 14
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Upon completion of this chapter, the reader will be able to:
• List the most important factors
involved in collecting specimens
for chemical analysis.
• Describe characteristics of
specimens that are inadequate
for testing.
• List the major differences
between plasma and serum
as specimens for testing.
• Discuss the purpose of a
standard for the various types
of determinations.
• Explain the differences between
a kinetic reaction and an endpoint
reaction.
• List the needs for safety
practices in the laboratory, both
mechanical and biohazardous.
KEY TERMS
Absorbance
Analytes
Anticoagulants
Colorimetric
Cuvette
Delta change
Discrete analysis
Electrochemistry
End-point reaction
Enzymatic
Fluoride
High-density lipoproteins (HDL)
Kinetic reaction
Linearity
Laboratory Information
System (LIS)
Low-density lipoproteins (LDL)
Micropipette
Parameters
Plasma
Preanalytical error
Random access
Random error
Sequential analysis
Serum
Short draws
Spectrophotometry
Supernatant
Total cholesterol
Wavelength
Introduction
Since the earliest attempts to develop procedures for diagnosing diseases—from
testing urine for glucose by tasting it or finding it attractive for ants, to boiling
and cooling specimens to identify various proteins in body secretions—no aspect
of the medical laboratory has become more automated than the chemistry area.
A panoply of instruments that are phenomenally accurate, cost-efficient, and
fast is commonly used today to perform chemistry procedures that evaluate the
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