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These reviews were published in the Journal of Clinical Pathology and a supporting series of cases in the British Medical Journal. See Authors and acknowledgments.

The content on this website is taken from a series of reviews which answer a number of questions which arise in primary care use of laboratory tests. These summaries were produced with the health professional in mind and assume knowledge of the context of the tests used. We welcome members of the general public to this site, but suggest also that they visit www.labtestsonline.org.uk which contains excellent, detailed patient-focussed descriptions of how individual tests are used, and which will put the content of this site in context.

The evidence base in diagnostics, particularly for monitoring tests is less strong than for clinical interventions, which may have a greater impact on clinical outcome and are easier to measure. Test guidance is obtained mostly from consensus statements and best practice reviews, and relies more on the science and pathophysiology of the diseases being studied.

The question set originated from a distribution and consultation process with a cohort of general practitioners who commented on and amended an original draft question set constructed by laboratory medical consultants. They are designed to highlight common areas of testing which raise questions for doctors and patients in primary care.

They have been written using a standard methodology [Smellie et al., 2005] and circulated for comment to members of professional medical associations (see Authors and acknowledgments) before being published, initially in review form, in the Journal of Clinical Pathology. This site presents the content of these reviews in an easily accessible format.

Each topic is introduced with a brief summary of the type of information found and is handled separately with its own reference list.

Whilst the individual subjects are not related as they cover the disciplines of clinical biochemistry, microbiology, immunology, haematology and cellular pathology, they are designed once completed to form a resource which is indexed and cross-referenced and covers a wide range of the most common primary care laboratory issues.

The thresholds and action limits suggested in these guidelines are offered as recommended default levels, and should not be interpreted as absolute levels, but rather as indicators to be interpreted in a clinical context. There are few situations in which a medical action can be dictated only by a laboratory result ignoring clinical context.

Where the new United Kingdom General Medical Services (GMS) contracts make specific reference to a laboratory test, the indicator or target is appended at the end of the answer.

We recommend using the topic browser to navigate the site. This is broken down into related topics, subjects and questions which can be accessed by drilling down through the different levels. Once in the subject area the question sets are displayed, which should allow the reader to see whether guidance is available on the question.

The search facility does not currently rank results or offer alternative word or spelling flexibility (UK English is used). It is currently under further development, but at present is probably more suitable for very specific searching rather than identifying overall content.

The compilation dates for the subjects are given indicatively although as the authorship process for each review took several months, original searches were done before the compilation date although efforts were made to identify any new documents which became available in the intervening period.

It is intended to review the individual topics 2 yearly, although more frequent updates may be made if important new guidance is published in the intervening period