[ENT surgery and laboratory medicine--the modern aspects of cooperation]

The value and application of a multiphase screening programme of preoperative laboratory investigations on ENT patients is described and assessed. Appropriate laboratory investigation should be chosen. The methods of investigation should provide information about the patient's general condition, should identify disease which has escaped clinical assessment, which is not connected with the underlying disease, but which could severely handicap a patient undergoing surgery. They are also designed to assist in the medical screening of the general population. The programme includes tests of organ function and of metabolism. The frequency of abnormal laboratory values (less than 2.5% at to longer end of the normal distribution curve or above 5% at the other) was 7.8% for blood sugar, 2.9% for serum creatinine, 4.5% for urea, 11.6% for uric acid in men and 4.8% in women, 9.8% for serum cholesterol, 2.9% for SGOT in men and 20.8% for triglycerides. Tests included in the haemostasiological study were the basic coagulation testing programme (PTT, Prothrombin Time, Thrombin Time and Fibrinogen). Inherited and acquired blood disorders are detected through the full coagulation test programme and assay of the specific coagulation factors and fibrin degradation products. We diagnosed 11 inherited blood disorders in 10,000 patients put through the above screening programme. The problems of diagnosis and therapy of antibody haemophilia are demonstrated by an example of antibody haemophilia of factor VIII.