Textbook of Clinical Chemistry

Clinical Chemistry (also known as Chemical Pathology, Medical Biochemistry and Clinical Biochemistry) 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 the biochemical investigations carried out in a clinical chemistry laboratory will help the clinicians to determine the diseases (diagnosis) and for follow-up of the treatment/recovery from the illness (prognosis). Biochemical investigations are used extensively in medicine, both in relation to diseases that have an obvious metabolic basis (e.g., diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism) and those in which biochemical changes are a consequence of the disease (e.g., kidney failure, malabsorption). The principal uses of biochemical investigations are for diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring and screening. Understanding these principles is a necessary requirement of the knowledge worker in the laboratory medicine. This significant professional role provides effective laboratory services that will improve medical decision making and thus patient safety while reducing medical errors. I sincerely hope that clinical chemistry specialist and educators find this book to be a worthy and useful tool to support their professional activities.