Use and positivity of laboratory tests at Las Tunas provincial hospital

Abstract

Background: the laboratories must offer the tests to aid doctors in their clinical practice, providing them with the information for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of diseases.Objective: to describe the use of tests which have been at the doctors’ disposal, as well as their positivity, at the laboratories of the “Dr. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna” General Teaching Hospital during 2016 and the first four-month period of 2017.Methods: a descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out at the aforementioned laboratories and period of time. The information from the lab registers and from the department of statistics was used. The origin of the patients, the tests ordered and their positivity were analyzed. The data were processed according to descriptive statistics.Results: the greater number of tests was performed at the central laboratory (41,2 %), particularly to inpatients (42,3 %). Out of a total of 39792 samples processed at the ultra-micro-analytic system (SUMA) laboratory, the screening for HIV represented 36,8 %, the total prostate-specific antigen was 26,1 % and the hepatitis B virus was 13 %. The positivity was lower in the cases of outpatients, while at the immunology laboratory it was high, mainly in the cases of circulating immune complexes (31,2 %), ANCA (28,1 %) and ANA (23 %).Conclusions: there was a high demand for lab tests. The positivity of the tests run on outpatients was reduced. The tests of the department of immunology had a higher positivity.

Keywords

• laboratories, hospital
• serologic tests
• clinical laboratory techniques.