Main description:

Analysis of blood and other body fluids is an essential aspect of modern medicine, enabling medical professionals to evaluate patient health, diagnose disease and monitor its progression, and assess treatment effectiveness. This thorough, wide-ranging new text provides a detailed guide to both routine tests such as cell counts, and glucose and protein levels, and highly specialized procedures involving blood (red cells, white cells, and plasma), synovial (joint) fluids, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, semen, feces, and other tissue and organ fluids. In addition to covering the principles and processes involved in numerous physical, chemical, and microscopic procedures to analyze body fluids, the text explores practical issues important for today's laboratory technicians, including quality control, quality assurance, and safety. The author also describes relevant anatomy and physiology to provide a robust understanding of the composition, formation, commonalities, distinctions, and function of various body fluids, and to clarify the connection between test results and patient health.

Contents:

1. Introduction to the Study of Body Fluids. 2. Quality Assurance and Laboratory Regulation. 3. Safety Practices in Testing Areas. 4. Metabolic Origins of Urine and Other Body Fluids. 5. Microscopic Components Common to Body Fluids. 6. Specimen Collection of Body Fluids. 7. Diseases of the Urinary System. 8. Components of the Evaluation of Urine. 9. Microscopic Examination. 10. Procedure for Performing Complete Urinalysis. 11. Cerebrospinal Analysis. 12. Semen Evaluation. 13. Serous Fluids Analysis. 14. Synovial Fluid Evaluation . 15. Fecal Analysis. 16. Miscellaneous Related Laboratory Analyses. 17. Microscope Use and Care. Glossary. Appendix A: Reference Ranges for Urine and Body Fluids Procedures. Appendix B: Atlas of Constituents of Urine Sediment.