Textbook of Medical Laboratory Technology Vol-1 Clinical Laboratory Science and Molecular Diagnosis

Textbook of Medical Laboratory Technology (Set of 2 Volumes) is a comprehensive set of two books for undergraduate students of Medicine. The book comprises chapters on clinical biochemistry, clinical microbiology, hematology, molecular biology and cytogenetics, histopathology and cytogenetics techniques. In addition, the book consists of several illustrations and diagrams for better understanding of the concepts. This book is essential for students of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology. About the Authors Praful B. Godkar and Darshan P. Godkar are Indian academic authors and educationists. They have co-authored this book.

The book comprises chapters on clinical biochemistry, clinical microbiology, hematology, molecular biology and cytogenetics, histopathology and cytogenetics techniques. In addition, the book consists of several illustrations and diagrams for better understanding of the concepts. This book is essential for students of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology.

REFACE

It gives us great pleasure to introduce a complete text book on “Medical Biochemistry”, which includes theory, practicals and question set prepared according to syllabi used by universities in India, other Asian countries, and English speaking countries. This text book of “Medical Biochemistry” includes 34 chapters. We have used continuous flow of subject matter of main topics for better understanding of “medical biochemistry” using subtitles such as Introduction, Definitions, Importance, Classification, Properties, Digestion, Absorption, General metabolism, Deranged metabolism, specific Clinical conditions, related Laboratory tests, Clinical significance, Case studies, and Summary with adequate References. The layout of this text book has been organized by keeping in mind that, “medical biochemistry” has enormous impact on the understanding and maintenance of health and understanding effective treatment of disease. This text book will be useful for the students to understand scientific basis of the life processes at the molecular level and subject matter will help the students to integrate molecular events with structure and function of the human body in health and disease.

Apart from the standard syllabus for medical students, additional chapters are included in this text book on the topics such as biochemistry of: Muscles-Cytoskeleton, Neurotransmitters, Cell membrane, Blood cells, Coagulation, Extracellular matrix, and other additional topics considered are, Immunology-Diagnostic serology, Cancer and tumor markers, Cardiac profile tests, Routine examination of Urine, CSF, Gastric juice, Drug assays and History of Biochemistry. We have included 756 colored illustrations and 163 tables in this text book, which will be useful for learning and understanding of the subject matter. We have discussed 71 case studies, including related laboratory reports. Students will be able to understand pathophysiology of specific clinical conditions with regard to various laboratory findings. Case history discussions will be useful to analyze and interpret laboratory reports. Students will also be able to develop the ability to suggest laboratory tests to support theoretical concepts and clinical diagnosis.

First chapter on “Basic Biochemistry Laboratory Requirements and Techniques”, will give the students complete information on all the laboratory requirements, including basic reagents, glassware, equipments, instruments, various types of techniques, laboratory mathematics and laboratory safety. Students will be able to adapt to safe practical work, while working from the day one in a biochemistry laboratory and also will be able to use appropriate requirements. Students will be able to understand principles of various conventional techniques and use of specialized laboratory tests and instrumentation.

The judicial use of various biochemical laboratory tests is an integral component of diagnosis and monitoring treatment. We have included all the important techniques and experiments according to the standard syllabi and also by keeping in mind the current trends in evidenced based medicine (EBM). We have included 69 laboratory experiments. Students will actually perform only about 21 Quantitative experiments and about 12–15 qualitative experiments, according to the specific syllabus of medical biochemistry. We have recommended some experiments only for observation and some only for reading purposes (refer to “the list of Experiments”). All the experiments are provided with “standard operation procedures” (SOPs) with “flow-charts”. These experiments are safe and based on manual as well as semi-automated methods and presented with standard composition of reagents. We have not considered some hazardous laboratory experiments which contain corrosive reagents (such as Libermann-Burchard reaction). Laboratory staff can easily prepare the reagents for routine practicals or specific diagnostic kits can be used. Flow charts will save “experiment demonstration time” of teachers. Students will be able to perform practicals easily and quickly by referring to the flow charts, without wasting time required to read and understand SOPs. After the completion of theoty topics, practical training, and study of case histories, students will be able to demonstrate the skills of solving clinical problems and decision making. All the additional practicals will be useful for certain students who wish to perform small-term research projects.

Extensive summaries at the end of each chapter will help the students for last-minute preparation for theory examination. To help the students for theory and practical examination preparations, we have also provided a complete booklet of “question set” based on traditional examination systems of theory, viva voce and practical examinations. It includes, theory questions such as multiple choice questions (with answers), short answer questions, long answer questions, and other types (e.g., “give reasons”, type). Question set also includes “grand viva voce questions”. For the preparation of “practical examination viva voce”, students should refer to all the data included in SOPs of the experiments (e.g., information on aim, clinical significance, patient preparation, specimen type, normal range, requirements, reagents, equipments, instruments, principle of test, precautions, sources of errors, quality control measures etc.).

We sincerely feel that excessive stress of theory examinations can be reduced, by using questions based not only on “memory” but also based on testing various other abilities such as thinking, innovation and creativity. Presentation of assigned projects during grand viva voce examination will give students an opportunity to improve their imaginative and presentation skills.

This test book is useful for the Medicine students of Allopathy, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani, Dentistry, Nursing, ophthalmology, biomedical sciences, physiotherapy, other paramedical courses, graduate and post-graduate students of biochemistry, etc. Practicing physicians also will find this text book as an excellent “reference book”.

We look forward to the valuable suggestions from the readers to improve future reprints and new editions of this test book.

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