Laboratory diagnostics in medicine [Лабораторные исследования в медицине]

The development of clinical laboratory diagnostics is in line with the evidence-based medicine, which requires that clinical decisions have to be based on diagnostic methods with proven informativity. This creates a request for the scientific validity of the use of laboratory researches and application of probabilistic interpretation tools corresponding to the tasks. The concept of indefiniteness (analytical, biological and clinical) is at the heart of interpretation of laboratory results. The inclusion of laboratory research in clinical guidelines, the choice and appointment of this research to the patient should not be made from the position of ideas about increasing or decreasing the laboratory index in the disease, but on the basis of its scientifically proven characteristics as a laboratory biomarker - sensitivity, specificity, predictive value, as well as the relationship with certain clinical events, outcomes, risks. These characteristics are probabilistic and can be defined. © 2020 Consilium Medikum. All rights reserved.