APPLICATION OF PROBABILITY TECHNIQUES TO THE OBJECTIVE INTERPRETATIONOF VETERINARY CLINICAL BIOCHEMISTRY DATA

Methods for the interpretation of veterinary clinical biochemistry hav e not developed as rapidly as biochemical technology. However, the res ults of clinical biochemistry tests are only of value when they are in terpreted appropriately. A retrospective study was undertaken to inves tigate the equine biochemistry data which had been stored in a veterin ary hospital database. By applying percentile analysis and Bayesian pr obability methods to the clinical biochemistry and corresponding diagn osis data, a novel method for the interpretation of clinical biochemis try data has been developed. The method allows clinicians to determine whether a biochemistry value is abnormal, its degree of abnormality, and the most likely associated diagnoses. The method could be used to investigate a practice-based population and may have significant impli cations for the interpretation of clinical biochemistry data in veteri nary medicine in the future.