[Comments on routine laboratory data that are of practical use for physicians].

Routine laboratory data are not adequately used to follow a patient because medical students are not educated to comprehend them with time series analysis. The Department of Laboratory Medicine can support physicians by adding comments to laboratory data that are of practical use for following a patient. At Shinshu University School of Medicine, routine laboratory data are discussed by time series analysis in a reversed clinicopathological conference(R-CPC). The general status is checked and then the state of each organ is examined using routine laboratory data, and we can obtain much more information about the patient than from physical examinations. In this R-CPC, several specialists in laboratory medicine discussed routine laboratory data of a patient with severe inflammation. It was difficult to diagnose him with a bacterial infection. Elevation of white blood cell count and high C-reactive protein suggested bacterial infection, and decreased platelets showed the possibility of bacteremia. However, he was clinically diagnosed as having multiple trauma without bacterial infection after falling down a mountainside. If routine laboratory data are finely analyzed by specialists in laboratory medicine, physicians can obtain useful information for patient treatment from the Department of Laboratory Medicine.