Clinical Chemistry
Clinical Chemistry Supplies
Alpha Laboratories supply a range of clinical chemistry kits and reagents for in-vitro analysis of body fluids which can assist with the clinical diagnosis and monitoring of diseases. Blood, urine and faeces tests can reveal a plethora of information from general health and nutritional status to specific organ damage and disease. Chemical Pathology or Clinical Biochemistry is the discipline that studies bodily fluids using a number of in vitro tests to provide clinicians with valuable information that can aid diagnosis. The use of certain biomarker screens can also be incorporated into testing regimes to exclude some patients from more invasive test procedures.
The blood serves to transport oxygen, nutrients and hormones around the body and to defend against bacteria and viruses. As such the levels of different proteins, antibodies and other analytes can provide information about how the body is functioning. Dehydration and malnutrition can be investigated by looking at electrolytes and Albumin; organ injury can be indicated by the presence of tissue specific enzymes such NGAL as that have leaked from damaged cells or a build up of waste products that are normally removed such as bilirubin and HA.
Serum Chemistry
The majority of our clinical chemistry assays are designed to analyse samples from blood, either using plasma or serum. Plasma is prepared by collecting the blood into a vessel with an anticoagulant such as EDTA to prevent clotting and then spinning in a centrifuge so that the blood cells are collected at the bottom of the tube. The plasma, the yellow liquid supernatant, is then drawn off for testing.
Alternatively the blood can be collected without anticoagulant and allowed to clot before spinning in a centrifuge to separate the cells and liquid serum. Unlike plasma, serum does not contain fibrinogen and certain clotting factors.
Biomarkers
Urine and stool samples are also important as these routes of elimination can also provide 
valuable information. The kidneys filter blood and retain and reabsorb proteins, but when function is impaired protein may be excreted in the urine; detection of urine proteins can help diagnosis kidney diseases or monitor function in chronic conditions such as diabetes or hypertension.
Whilst measurement of CRP in the blood can indicate inflammation it will not specify which tissues are involved as blood circulates throughout the body. However measurement of the inflammation marker Calprotectin in stool samples gives information specifically about the bowel and as such can be used as a screening test to help distinguish between patients with functional disorders such as Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and those with suspected inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as ulcerative colitis. The faecaloccult blood test (FOB Test) is another screening test that is used to detect the presence of blood in faeces which is a possible symptom of bowel cancer. Both Calprotectin and FOB screening tests can be used to avoid patients undergoing unnecessary invasive procedures.
Calibration and QC
All quantitative assays need calibration to ensure accurate recovery and reporting. Alpha offer a range of single component and multicomponent calibrators and standards for use with a number of different biochemistry tests. All assays should be standardised to recognised reference material or approved methodology where possible.
The use of quality control measures to validate assay performance is essential and controls should be run with every batch of samples. Assayed controls will give a target value and range in which the assay should recover. External Quality Assurance schemes should also be used where ever possible to confirm that the clinical lab is reporting results in the same range as everybody else.
We supply reagents for numerous clinical chemistry assays including:
