Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Clinical Techniques
  • Published:

Using the SOAP format and a minimum database with clinical chemistry

Lab Animal volume 45, pages 259–261 (2016)Cite this article

Timely veterinary care and accurate reporting are mutually complementary attributes in an animal research program. The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and American Association for the Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) have responded to issues and concerns related to the provision of timely, adequate veterinary care, offering incrementally more detail to inform how animals should receive efficient and suitable veterinary care1,2. A previous Clinical Techniques feature highlighted time-honored approaches for veterinary record-keeping and diagnostics and, particularly, a problem-oriented approach toward medical records that uses a four-part standard known as SOAP, which considers subjective signs, objective signs, assessment and planning3. When using the SOAP format to report a problem-oriented veterinary medical record, the 'objective' elements in a record, such as important vital signs and measured values, can crucially inform a diagnosis—the 'assessment' component of the record. In this context, a more granular approach toward clinical chemistry can help clinicians to determine urgent, timely and adequate veterinary care, where it is needed, and the role of early diagnosis and intervention in achieving overall humane outcomes and reliable reporting of research.

Veterinarians can typically distinguish time-sensitive diagnostic values that require swift analysis and clinical responses through the 'assessment' component of a SOAP record in the context of a minimum database4. Typically, a minimum database is a set of physiologic values these can be used to rapidly determine problematic conditions and the appropriate corrective actions that can be implemented to prevent a patient's condition from destabilizing. A minimum database can describe a variety of physiological attributes and generally includes values for physiological and hematological parameters such as packed blood cells (serum hematocrit), total solids, blood glucose and serum electrolytes. The equipment needed to analyze blood samples and quantify these parameters is inexpensive by the standards of laboratory animal science (Table 1) and does not require complex calibration. Where diagnosis and clinical response are concerned, recent literature emphasizes the need to monitor and treat pain; however, dehydration, anemia, electrolyte deficiencies and hypoglycemia are also common conditions that, when detected early in their development, can be quickly corrected to optimize humane and experimental outcomes.

Table 1 In-house equipment necessary to obtain clinical values to establish and use a minimum database
Full size table

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Institute for Laboratory Animal Research. Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals 8th edn. (National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2011).

  2. Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International. Position Statement: The Attending Veterinarian and Veterinary Care. http://www.aaalac.org/accreditation/positionstatements.cfm#vetcare (accessed 6 June 2016).

  3. Hampshire, V. A systematic process for physical examination in preclinical research. Lab Anim. (NY) 44, 89–90 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Lee, J.A. The poor man's DINAMAP and other monitoring made simple. Proc. Int. Vet. Emerg. Crit. Care Symp. (San Antonio, TX, 2012).

  5. Jeffre, A. et al. Reference values: a review. Vet. Clin. Pathol. 38, 288–98 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Rosenfeld, A.J. & Dial, S.M. Clinical Pathology for the Veterinary Team 1st edn. (Wiley-Blackwell, Ames, IA, 2010).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Macneill, A.L. Getting started with clinical pathology. in Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Techniques for Laboratory Technicians (eds. Barger, A.M. & Macneill, A.L.) 1–19 (Wiley-Blackwell, London, 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Hackett, T.B. & Mazaferro, E.M. Continuous rate infusions. in Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Procedures 273–275 (Wiley-Blackwell, Ames, IA, 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Plunket, S.J. Emergency Procedures for the Small Animal Veterinarian (Elsevier, Philadelphia, 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Hakenson, C.F. Critical Care Management for Laboratory Mice and Rats (Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton, FL, 2014).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Whitbread, T.J. Clinical Biochemistry. in Merck Veterinary Manual (eds. Aiello, S.E., Moses, M.A. & Steigerwald, M.A.) http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/clinical_pathology_and_procedures/ diagnostic_procedures_for_the_private_practice_laboratory/clinical_biochemistry.html. (June 2015).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Victoria Hampshire
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hampshire, V. Using the SOAP format and a minimum database with clinical chemistry. Lab Anim 45, 259–261 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.1040

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.1040

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing