Osmolality testing is a powerful screening tool which provides quick and accurate diagnoses for a wide range of disorders. With continuing pressure on laboratories and their staff, a new osmometer with increased automation, ease of use, and workflow flexibility also offers further features to minimise errors and simplify the testing process.
Here is a typical, and overmodest, definition for osmolality: It “indicates the concentration of all the particles dissolved in body fluid”.1 What’s hiding behind this dry description is that osmolality is a powerful tool: It delivers crucial information for making accurate diagnoses and establishing proper treatment plans for patients with disorders involving water and electrolyte imbalances. In fact, osmolality testing by freezing-point depression osmometry is essential for getting extremely accurate, and even fast, insights into the pathophysiology of disorders such as hyponatraemia, metabolic acidosis and different types of intoxication.
A high-value, low-cost test
Acute intoxication with alcohol or other substances is frequently seen in emergency departments and constitutes a significant burden on emergency health services.2,3 Metabolic acidosis4 and electrolyte disorders5 such as hypo- and hyponatraemia are also common issues in both emergency medicine and intensive care medicine. In the latter two cases, there can be dozens of possible causes for their conditions. As a result, it would be very expensive and time consuming to test each laboratory analyte for all possibilities.
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