With the increasing complexity of modern medicine, we now have literally
thousands of possible investigative techniques at our disposal. We are able
to examine our patient’s serum and every other body fluid down to the
level of individual nucleotides, as well as being able to perform precise
imaging through CT, MRI and other imaging technologies. The problem we
have all faced, especially as senior medical students or junior doctors is:
which test should we use in a given setting? What hazards are associated
with the tests? Are there any situations where specific tests should not be
used or are likely to produce erroneous results? As medical complexity
increases so too does cost; many assays available today are highly expensive
and wherever possible we would ideally like to use a test which is
cheap, reliable, reproducible and right for a given situation.
