Diagnostic Testing Flashcards
What does anatomic pathology include?
Post Mortems
Histology
What does clinical pathology include?
Biochemistry
Serology
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Why do you have to be careful when selecting tests to be sent to NZVP or Gribbles?
It can be expensive!
Don’t want to waste the clients money.
e.g. full CBC costs $110 but the markup to clients can be up to $220
Why do you have to beware of test results and interpretations if your samples are sent to a medical laboratory?
- Medical pathologists aren’t usually trained to interpret animal samples.
- Their equipment is not set up for animal blood
- Reference ranges will generally be unreliable e.g. what may be abnormally high in people might be normal in a horse
- Some tests are completely unreliable in animals
- Haem techs won’t do manual blood smear examination
If you suspect an exotic disease in an animal e.g. mad cow disease. who do you contact?
MPI Biosecurity NZ
- They are part of the Investigation and disease centre (IDC)
- They will come and do everything for you at no cost to ensure it isn’t an outbreak
What information must you provide on the form when submitting samples?
- Signalment
- Clinical signs and history
- Any results of lab tests done in clinic
The more info the better!
Try to give them the big picture
What is important when vets are doing in-clinic tests?
Tests are only as reliable as the person who performs them
- should do that test at least once a week to ensure its fresh in head
- be under supervision of someone else
- It is better to do a few tests well than heaps poorly
What is Quality Assurance?
an overall set of protocols to ensure test results are valid
What is Quality Control?
Procedures set in place to ensure a manufactured product sticks to a defined set of quality criteria
What is Internal QC?
Control samples with known values are run with test samples at least once a week
What is external QC?
Duplicate samples are sent to the lab for comparison
Why is QC/ QA important?
Absolutely necessary for reliable results
- no QC = no guarantee that results are accurate
What is test selection?
Selecting tests that you know might help, confirm or exclude major DDx
What might occur if you only pick one lab test?
Might miss a vital piece of information
- tests used in isolation might be misleading because the results might be different tomorrow or might have been different yesterday
Why might repeat sampling be necessary?
To confirm suspicious results or to assess to progress in an animal
- this is particularly important in endocrine cases