Purine and Urate Metabolism Abnormalities of purine metabolism are often found in clinical practice, notably hyperuricaemia and gout. After exploring purine metabolic pathways, this chapter discusses the various disorders of…
Proteins in Plasma and Urine PLASMA PROTEINS Plasma albumin and total protein are often included as part of a biochemistry department’s assay profile, and other more specialized plasma proteins such…
Plasma Enzymes in Diagnosis (Clinical Enzymology) This chapter discusses the principles of clinical enzymology, which have already been encountered in some of the preceding chapters. Enzymology can be defined as…
Liver Disorders and Gallstones This chapter looks at the chemical pathology of liver and gall bladder disorders. These are common in clinical practice, and liver function tests constitute one of…
The Gastrointestinal Tract Gastrointestinal disorders present relatively commonly to doctors, and biochemical laboratory tests have important roles in their investigation. This chapter looks at gastrointestinal pathophysiology and how chemical pathology…
Vitamins, Trace Elements and Metals This chapter looks at vitamins and trace elements, and might usefully be read in conjunction with Chapter 14 (Nutrition). It also discusses certain elemental metals…
Plasma Lipids and Lipoproteins Lipids play a critical role in almost all aspects of biological life – they are structural components in cells and are involved in metabolic and hormonal…
Carbohydrate Metabolism This chapter discusses carbohydrate metabolism and its abnormalities, with emphasis on diabetes mellitus and hypoglycaemia. In the next decade it is predicted that there will be about 250…
Thyroid Function It is important to understand thyroid biochemistry, as it helps to interpret thyroid function tests, which are among the most common endocrine requests in clinical practice. Thyroid disease…
