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Clinical › Bloodwork HbA1c lipid panel eGFR & renal function

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dr_okonkwoTL4 Moderator15 Dec 2025#1

Community wiki post. Any member at trust level 3 or above can edit this post; every edit is recorded. Last edited by hana.sato on 12 Mar 2026.

21 Feb 2026 — dr_okonkwo: Clarified the distinction that was causing repeat questions below.
21 Mar 2026 — mira.patel: Added the worked example and a unit label to the table header.
12 Mar 2026 — hana.sato: Replaced an unsourced figure with the published one and cited it.

Editors: dr_okonkwo, mira.patel, hana.sato

Staff post. Actions described here are recorded in the public moderation log and may be challenged in Meta.

Panels, reference intervals, biological variation, and resisting the urge to over-read one result.

This post is a community wiki: any member at trust level 3 or above can edit it, and every edit is recorded with its author and a note. If the scope described here has drifted from what actually gets posted, edit it rather than starting a topic about it.

What belongs here

Questions specific to bloodwork, with the units and the context stated.
Reports and datasets, with the collection method stated.
Disagreement about the substance, conducted in public.

What belongs elsewhere

Anything urgent belongs in Safety, immediately, and not here.
Anything about how this site works belongs in Meta.
Requests for a maintained page belong in Wiki requests.

Before posting, it is worth checking the documentation commons and this category's tag pages. A great deal of what gets asked here has a maintained answer with a review date on it, which is more reliable than a two-year-old reply.

7 likes 7mo

KLindqvistTL4 Moderator8 Jan 2026#2

Staff post. Actions described here are recorded in the public moderation log and may be challenged in Meta.

Moderation notes for this category, so that nothing about how it is run is a surprise.

Topics get moved into and out of here regularly. A move is not a judgement — the category tree is not obvious from outside and putting a question in the wrong place is expected. When I move something I say so in the topic and the action appears in the public log with the guideline cited.

The two guidelines that come up most often in this category are R2, on supplying a source when asked, and R7, on category placement. Neither is used punitively.

0 likes 7mo

BuchholzTL2Member26 Jan 2026#3

As a member rather than staff: the most useful thing I did when I started reading this category was to work through the tag pages rather than the topic list. The topic list shows you what is recent. The tags show you what is settled.

32 likes 6mo

f.laurentTL210 Feb 2026#4

Suggestion for the wiki post above: it would be worth linking the two or three most-referenced topics in this category directly, since new members reliably ask for exactly those. Happy to make the edit myself if nobody objects, with a revision note.

17 likes 6mo

c.rasmussenTL225 Feb 2026#5

Repeat before acting is standard practice for an isolated abnormal result on most analytes, and it is standard for a reason.

That is the version I would defend. It is not the version I started with.

6 likes 5mo

e.lokkenTL211 Mar 2026 · edited#6

Picking up post #3: that is the part I would want checked first.

A trend needs at least three points to be a trend. Two points are a line and a line through noise is still a line.

I have deliberately not rounded that, because the rounding is where the argument starts.

1 like 5mo

a.friskTL224 Mar 2026#7

dr_okonkwo, post #1: Panels, reference intervals, biological variation, and resisting the urge to over-read one result. This post is a community wiki: any member at trust level 3 or above can edit it, and every edit is recorded with its author and a note. If the scope described here has drifted from what actually gets posted, edit it rather than starting a… Go to post

Coming back to post #3, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.

Time of day: some biomarkers vary across the day. Cortisol in the morning differs from cortisol in the evening. Comparing results from different times of day is comparing things that are not the same.

I have no interest in any supplier named above.

0 likes in reply to #1 4mo

t.ndiayeTL25 Apr 2026#8

Glycaemic markers integrate over different periods. A point glucose and a longer-term marker disagreeing is not a contradiction; it is two different questions.

23 likes 4mo

t.demirTL218 Apr 2026#9

Post #7 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.

Repeat before acting is standard practice for an isolated abnormal result on most analytes, and it is standard for a reason.

Adding this to the thread rather than to the wiki, because I am not confident enough for the wiki.

0 likes 3mo

This topic was referenced in

HbA1c lag and what it can and cannot tell you at eight weeksClinical › Bloodwork · 18 replies
eGFR fluctuation and the creatinine denominator problem — the long versionClinical › Bloodwork · 47 replies

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