converting blood chemistry values to SI

For more than 50 years medical laboratories have recorded concentration
values as 'mg/dL' or 'mEq/L' but are now changing over to 'mmol/L or mol/L'
standard SI units. I believe that mEq/L = mmol/L since 'one equivalent =
one mole' but is there any simple way of converting a serum cholesterol
value of 150mg/dL to mmol/L? Does one have to compute the 'gram molecular
weight of cholesterol' or is that figure listed somewhere?
John

"John L. Shamblin, Jr." <[Only registered users see links. ]> wrote in message
news:[Only registered users see links. ]...
mol/L'
The simplest way is to find a table of conversion factors. Otherwise, you
have to know the molar weight, but you can look it up - e.g., in the Merck
Manual.

Most physicians forget that they ever took chemistry. All they really have
know is how the lab results compare with the reference range for healthy
people, and it is common for the result reports to include that information.

The first high-volume clinical chemistry analyzers were the Technicon SMA
series. The output was drawn as a bar graph by a strip-chart recorder. The
charts were pre-printed with gray areas for the reference range (then called
normal ranges) of each analyte, so that the physician could see at a glance
if any of the results needed attention. The output came to be called a
profile, and "profiling" became a common term in medicine.

When I went to work at Technicon (1970), each hospital had its own normal
ranges, and they were different even between nearby hospitals that served
similar populations. Better quality control has now corrected that.

in article [Only registered users see links. ], John L. Shamblin, Jr. at
[Only registered users see links. ] wrote on 7/30/03 12:50 PM:

All I can say is this is the main source of my antipathy toward mcg. One mg
per dL is basically saying one µg per mL. or one milli-centigram per mL. It
snowballed from there.

Bill

Repeating Decimal wrote:

One vignette, and then I'm outta this discussion:

Because my father died of heart disease, my doctor has me, quite
wisely from all that I've read, on a prophylactic elephant's dose of
folate: 900 micrograms, just short of a milligram, per day.

It took the pharmacist and the doc's secretary a day of phoning each
other to get it figgered out. (It was obvious to me, but what the
hey, I'm just the customer, right?)

My guess, from what I've read, is that this will become a normal
supplement for men and post-menopausal women in the advanced
countries within a few years.

Sure hope they can get their micro~ and milli~ together in the
course of things.

-dlj.

"John L. Shamblin, Jr." <[Only registered users see links. ]> wrote in message news:<[Only registered users see links. ]>...

Not entirely true i am afraid, John.

1 equivalent is only 1 mol when the molecule is monofunctional in
relation to the quantified property. For example sulfuric acid is
bifunctional when it comes to acid-base reactions, so 1 equivalent is
0.5 mol.
KMnO4 can be pentafunctional or trifunctional in redox reactions
depending on the products formed (Mn2+ or MnO2). Here 1 equivalent
would either be 0.2 or 0.333 mol.

And going for SI units in the mg/dL case.. there is no need to go to
mols here... the SI units here are kg and L so basically the old
result is multiplied by 10E-5 (mg -> kg: 10E-6 and dL -> L: 10E-1 =>
10E-6/10E-1 = 10E-5)

Did i remove all clarities? ;-)

cheers

dave

> "John L. Shamblin, Jr." <[Only registered users see links. ]> wrote in message news:<[Only registered users see links. ]>...

I have a public service SI conversion web site for clinical analytes at

[Only registered users see links. ]

Dennis Jay, Ph.D.

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