As a practicing physician I want all potassium results hemolysed or not. You do not know what I am looking for and the delay can have serious knock on effects. Sometimes I just want to see if the potassium is less than something eg if I am looking to see if someone needs to be dialysed even if the urea and creatinine are raised and the K is 6.0 with hemolysis I know it can't be higher and I would wait until tomorrow to retake the blood. I would know it was safe to wait for dialysis too.
I think it appropriate to add a warning that the result is falsely high and should be interpreted with caution but not leave the MD with nothing. We do not know what question the doctor is asking. So I give the result and in the last 15 (plus) years we have done that and used indices since 1998 on Roche instruments and have not had any problem, that I know of, to date.
Elizabeth MacNamara
Jewish General Hospital
Montreal
On 2012-02-03, at 10:09 AM, "Isla Wootton" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I would be grateful for your thoughts regarding the following. We routinely block the reporting of results for certain assays on hemolysed samples. We recently received a complaint from a Paediatrician stating that they routinely check bloods to exclude an elevated potassium or elevated liver enzymes and therefore would still value a result even though a sample was hemolysed. His argument was that a normal potassium and / or normal liver enzymes on a hemolysed sample are still a useful negative result and would save considerable time and effort.
>
> I would be interested to know how other laboratories approach the reporting/blocking of results on hemolysed paediatric samples, or whether they have received similar complaints and how they have responded.
>
> Thank you for your help
>
> Regards
>
> Isla Wootton
> Senior Clinical Biochemist
> Northampton General Hospital
>
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