ABSTRACT
The laboratory can provide a great deal of information to the emergency department physician and can aid in the diagnosis and care given to the overdosed patient (1). Some physicians, however, have unrealistic expectations of how the laboratory can be of help. In the toxicologic setting, the laboratory can aid the physician diagnostically in a qualitative manner through a toxicologic screen for the presence of one or more suspected toxins, or prognostically through a quantitative analysis of a particular toxin. The laboratory can also aid in the therapeutic mon itoring of drugs and in testing for drugs of abuse (2). However, the majority of toxicologic diagnoses and ther apeutic decisions are made on a clinical basis, even though technology has provided the ability to measure almost any toxin (3).
