Abstract
Laboratory examinations are an indispensable part of therapeutic and preventive medical care. They serve for making diagnosis, evaluation of the severity of the disease and prognosis, monitoring of the course of the disease, detection of complications as well as for screening of selected diseases.
The key moment is proper interpretation of results, mainly if the causes are not obvious at the first sight and if the clinical status does not fit imaging and laboratory results. The article focuses on the evaluation of results based on the facts that we have the right sample from the right patient, collection of the material has been done in a standard manner, preanalytical factors related to the material collection and transport have been eliminated and there is no contamination of the material.
Possible changes then are caused by biochemical changes in the organism and their possible influence on laboratory analyses. We should always ask a question whether it is a real problem or just a position of the result out of the reference ranges given by the inter-individual variability in the population, i.e. whether the change is of importance and affects further process.