Serial Lab Testing: Worthwhile or Worthless? Part 2

Yesterday, I posted a series of sodium levels that were drawn daily. There was no change in clinical status as the levels varied from 131 to 125 and back up.

Now let me give you a bit more information. The patient was actually getting serial checks every 6 hours (or more)! Here’s the updated chart:

Day/Time Na Treatment NaCl per day
Day 1 18:30 131
Day 1 22:54 132 0.9% NS @ 125/hr 3G
Day 2 05:59 133 continues 3G
Day 2 12:19 129 continues
Day 2 17:50 129 continues
Day 3 07:18 127 continues
Day 3 12:09 127 continues
Day 3 17:58 126 continues
Day 3 23:53 126 continues
Day 4 07:45 125 continues
Day 4 11:38 122 2% NS @ 25/hr 6G
Day 4 15:25 125 continues
Day 4 19:31 125 continues
Day 5 00:06 122 continues 6G
Day 5 04:04 126 continues
Day 5 08:01 122 continues
Day 5 11:50 132 stop
Day 5 16:14 126
Day 5 19:26 127
Day 6 00:20 129 9.2G
Day 6 04:42 127 2% NS @ 40/hr
Day 6 08:30 124 continues
Day 6 12:29 127 stop
Day 6 16:16 127 Salt tabs 2G tid
Day 6 20:28 132 continues
Day 7 05:22 134 Salt tabs 2G qid 8G
Day 7 12:33 135 continues
Day 8 07:02 131 stop None
Day 8 13:33 136

Confused? Me, too! This poor person had 30 blood draws in 8 days, with 6 per day for two of those days. Carefully look at the amount of salt given in each 24 hour period, and look at the sodium levels for that day.

See the variability, even when getting high doses of sodium chloride? What does this tell you? Was the salt administration helpful? Was seeing the lab value every 4-6 hours valuable?

Tell me what you think. Leave comments or tweet your opinions. Next, I’ll discuss the known variability of the serum sodium assay, and give you my opinion on the value of serial testing.

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