Communications and Publications

Vol 18 n° 1

eJIFCC 2007,18 (1) Evidence Based Laboratory Medicine in the Diagnosis of Metabolic Syndrome

Ana Stavljenić Rukavina, Daria Pašalić
Zagreb University School of Medicine, Croatia

Introduction

Evidence based medicine (EBM) is a formalized system helping medical community cope with numerous different medical information, whereby the end result helps doctors identify the best diagnostic tests and treatments. Medical knowledge is accumulating and changing with such a dizzying speed that medical community has found it needs new methods to cope with it all. EBM provides formal protocols that are applied to the latest data to determine what data best support the best outcomes.

The aims of EBM in laboratory medicine (or EBLM) are to advance clinical diagnosis by research and dissemination of new knowledge, and to combine methods from clinical epidemiology, statistics and social science with the traditional pathophysiological and molecular approach. The evaluation of diagnostic investigations as well as the clinical decision-making process can help in translating the results of good quality research into everyday practice.

EBLM has a few elements which have to be satisfied by order: audit practice, identifying the question, search for evidence, critically appraising the evidence, applying it to practice by modifying the practice, and constant practice audit.