The reference change value: the number that tells you whether a delta is real
A flag is a probability statement about a population. It is not a statement about the person holding the printout.
Thyroid
Page 2 of 2 of this archive, newest first.
Why your laboratory interval differs from the one in the textbook
Two sources of noise sit under every number: how reproducible the assay is, and how much the analyte varies within the same person on the same day.
What the outcome trials measured in the kidney
Asymptomatic pancreatic enzyme elevation is common on treatment and is not pancreatitis. The distinction is clinical, not biochemical.
HbA1c and its lag: what a result three months old is telling you
What the SURPASS and STEP programmes reported, with the estimands and the baseline values stated.
A reference interval is not a target, and a result outside one is not a diagnosis
The arithmetic of the reference change value, worked for the analytes that matter here.
A guide to the results that will resolve themselves
The panel drawn during a week of vomiting is measuring the vomiting.
EGFR, cystatin C, and the check on the check
Estimated glomerular filtration rate is a calculation with muscle mass in the denominator of its assumptions. In this population that matters.
What the trials monitored, and what that implies about routine practice
Timing is the whole of the post-cessation panel: draw it too early and it measures the treatment period.
Which results are findings and which are consequences of the weight loss
The panel drawn during a week of vomiting is measuring the vomiting.
The reference change value: the number that tells you whether a delta is real
The arithmetic of the reference change value, worked for the analytes that matter here.
Micronutrient monitoring: which panel, how often, and on whose evidence
What the trials measured, which in the case of micronutrients is very little.
Rapid weight loss moves eight analytes for reasons that have nothing to do with the drug
Which movements are expected, which resolve, and which warrant investigation.
Which results are findings and which are consequences of the weight loss
Three different explanations for the same abnormal number, and how to tell them apart.
Reading HbA1c in the presence of anaemia
A robust, cheap, standardised assay with a specific and well-catalogued set of failure modes, several of which are common in this population.
What the upper limit of normal for ALT should be, and why it is not
Asymptomatic pancreatic enzyme elevation is common on treatment and is not pancreatitis. The distinction is clinical, not biochemical.
Falling ferritin is not always falling iron
A substantial proportion of the abnormal results generated during rapid weight loss are consequences of the weight loss rather than findings about the person.
Thiamine and the vomiting patient
Which markers are informative, which are confounded, and which move for reasons unrelated to nutrition.
Thiamine and the vomiting patient
What the trials measured, which in the case of micronutrients is very little.
Which results are findings and which are consequences of the weight loss
A substantial proportion of the abnormal results generated during rapid weight loss are consequences of the weight loss rather than findings about the person.