Case Studies Boost Insight Collaboration in Endocrinology

Laboratorians who want to leverage their knowledge to solve patient mysteries in endocrinology on July 26 should attend the session “Laboratorians to Diagnosticians: The True Value of Laboratory Medicine in Endocrinology Practice” (191005) at AACC’s Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo in Atlanta.

Use of laboratory investigations for diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic purposes is one of the most essential elements of endocrine practice, Sutirtha Chakraborty, MBBS, MD, FACB, chief consultant with Peerless Hospital & B K Roy Research Center’s Department of Biochemistry in Kolkata, India, told CLN Stat. As a medical specialty, endocrinology “is very heavily dependent on the laboratory, particularly clinical chemistry, for measurement of hormones and other endocrine biomarkers. It’s not only about the measurement of a particular analyte, but also its right interpretation in the clinical context of the patient.”

Clinical laboratory specialists have an important role to play in the clinical interpretation of such results. Through this, “they can become an indispensable part of any clinical patient care team,” added Chakraborty.

He and Danielle Beverley Freedman, MD, director of pathology at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital in Luton, England, will be co-presenting at this session, and they will discuss case studies on common diagnostic endocrinology problems related to HbA1c interpretation, electrolyte imbalance, and procalcitonin testing.

Through these case studies, attendees “can learn some strategies of how to effectively approach clinical cases through their knowledge of clinical chemistry,” thus creating immense value to daily patient care, Chakraborty explained.

Teamwork and good communication are key factors to providing high-quality care. To improve patient care and value in endocrinology testing, Chakraborty advised that laboratorians should integrate themselves with daily patient care and become involved with individual patient cases. They should also be communicating with patients’ physicians on a daily basis. Doctors and laboratories have a common goal—to solve the patient’s problem, he noted.

“It is well known that the majority of clinical decisions are taken on the basis of data produced by the clinical laboratory. But the real importance of laboratory medicine lies in bridging the knowledge gap at the clinician-laboratory interface. It is not just the laboratory data, but also the knowledge sharing which counts,” said Chakraborty.