Preparation before test
To achieve quality of lab results, it is necessary that patients should prepare for lab tests as directed by prescribing doctors or Medical officer at AFIP Reception.
AFIP offers more than 1,000 clinical lab tests. Most of lab tests including blood complete picture, liver function test or renal function test and many more do not require special preparation and can be taken at any time of the day without any special preparation.
Only few lab tests require special preparation before sample collection. For such lab test patient is required to follow a specific set of instructions before delivering the sample. Some of these include fasting state, taking the test at a certain time of the day, following a specific diet for certain period, lack of physical activity and smoking before the test.
Some of special clinical lab test preparation include:
Fasting: There are certain tests which require fasting in which patient is asked not to eat or drink before/during the test for a specific period of time. During fasting patient can only drink plain water. Duration of fasting depends upon the type of lab test. Patient needs to ask his doctor or sample collection staff at AFIP for any particular instruction for fasting for specific lab test.
Sample delivery time: For certain tests immediate transport of sample to laboratory is required. For example sample for arterial blood gases (ABGs) should be transported with ice within fifteen minutes to laboratory.
Medicines intake: Whenever a lab test is conducted for culture examination such as urine, stool, throat or sputum, it is required that sample should be collected before taking any antibiotic.
Specific Diet: There are some tests for which patient is asked to refrain from eating specific food for certain period of time to get accurate results. For example restriction of banana and vanilla intake for twenty hours urine collection for VMA
