engleski

Laboratory monitoring of a critically ill child

The practice of pediatric laboratory medicine involves unique challenges related to development, nutrition, growth, and diseases during different periods of infancy, childhood, and adolescence. This article discusses aspects of pediatric laboratory medicine faced by clinicians, including point-of-care testing, preanalytic variables, analytic factors, reference intervals, and future opportunities. The laboratory contribution in the care of a seriously ill child is essential to plan and organize the therapy after the first-step emergency care and to know the aethiology of the illness. The laboratory tests which have to be available within few minutes are blood cell count, hemogasanalysis, sodium, potassium and calcium, glucose. The other tests, such as creatinine and urea, bleeding tests, blood smear, osmolality etc. should be available within sixty minutes. New accurate and rapid techniques and instrumentations make easier the diagnostic and therapeutical approach to pediatric emergency. Point-of-care testing is a technological innovation with the potential for improving patients' care. It most likely will soon become part of the standard of care. POCT has a unique niche in critical care transport, and experience shows that testing can be performed with high reliability. POCT provides the benefit of rapid analysis of critical analytes and blood gases in a setting where no other laboratory analysis is available. Although challenging, pediatric laboratory testing offers many opportunities for improved patient care, clinical and laboratory based research, and education.

pediatric critical care ; emergency pediatric laboratory ; laboratory monitoring ; test-ordering ; point-of-care testing ; turn around time ; sample flow

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