Basic Principles and Practices

Quantitative science that is concerned with measurement of amounts of biologically important substances (analytes) in body fluids

What is the primary purpose of a clinical chemistry laboratory

It defines the physical quantity or dimension

A system preferred in scientific literature and clinical laboratories and is the only system employed in many countries

Système International d’Unités (SI), adopted internationally in

The SI system units are based on

Subclassifications of SI system

This group develops standards of practice, definitions, and guidelines that can be adopted by everyone in a given field, providing for more uniform terminology and less confusion

Reporting of laboratory results is often expressed in terms of

Varying grades of purity of analytic chemicals

Purity grade of the chemical that is specified by American Chemical Society

Chemicals of this category are suitable for use in most analytic laboratory procedures

Chemicals that have been put through additional purification steps for use in specific procedures such as chromatography, atomic absorption, immunoassays, molecular diagnostics, standardization, or other techniques that require extremely pure chemicals

These reagents may carry designations of HPLC (high-performance liquid chromatography) or chromatographic on their labels

Chemicals used to manufacture drugs

The limitations established for this group of chemicals are based only on the criterion of not being injurious to individuals

Chemicals that are pure enough for use in most chemical procedures

Impurity limitations are not stated and that preparation of these chemicals is not uniform

Analysis often used to ascertain the acceptable purity range of chemically pure (CP) grade chemicals

These chemicals are not recommended for clinical laboratories use for reagent preparation unless further purification or a reagent blank is included

Chemicals used primarily in manufacturing and should never be used in the clinical laboratory

Organic reagents with some impurities

Organic reagents which approaches the purity level of reagent grade chemicals

Purity levels of these chemicals are attained by their respective procedures