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Correspondence

Indian Pediatr 2018;55: 81

Neonatal Endocrine Labomas: Few Concerns: Author's Reply

 

Deep Dutta

Department of Endocrinology, Venkateshwar Hospital, Dwarka, New Delhi, India.
Email: [email protected]

 


We appreciate the comments of the reader and agree that the need of the hour is to also highlight common analytical and non-analytical pitfalls in other streams of medicine apart from endocrinology – for example, hematology, biochemistry and immunology – to avoid "Labomas" in those areas [1]. Such data are unfortunately lacking from India. The authors are currently working on this area, and should soon be able to come out with concrete Indian data on the same.

Global laboratory data analysis in the West have revealed that a large majority of the laboratory errors (75% of the errors) involved wrong patient labeling, with a large fraction of this error (24% of the errors) occurred at the site of sample collection and labeling [2]. Labomas have consistently been reported to be predominantly due to pre- and post-analytical stages errors, rather than the analytical errors [3]. A study evaluating data obtained from 1,600 testing procedure in general biochemistry and hematology revealed 0.87% procedures being associated with errors, with preanalytic and post- analytic errors contributing to 35.7% and 50% of all errors [4]. The good news is that studies have consistently reported that less than 10% of all labomas to actually have an impact on patient diagnosis and management [3,4]. Increased automation, with better analytical technology have helped in reducing the occurrence of labomas.

References

1. Society for Promotion of Education in Endocrinology and Diabetes (SPEED) Group, Chittawar S, Dutta D, Khandelwal D, Singla R. Neonatal endocrine labomas - pitfalls and challenges in reporting neonatal hormonal reports. Indian Pediatr. 2017;54:757-62.

2. Layfield JL, Anderson MG. Specimen labelling errors in surgical pathology: An 18-month experience. American J Clin Pathol. 2010;134:466-70.

3. Mohammedsaleh ZM, Mohammedsaleh F. A review article of the reduce errors in medical laboratories. Glob J Health Sci. 2014;7:46-51.

4. Miligy DA. Laboratory errors and patient safety. Int J Health Care Qual Assur. 2015;28:2-10.

 

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