Disclaimer

This short book aims to provide a quick reference guide for clinicians who wish to use equations to better understand disorders in electrolyte and acid-base homeostasis.

It is important to state that such analysis can never be used in isolation to make reliable clinical descisions. Equations can provide a useful adjunct to clinical judgement, but thoughtful clinical judgement is far more likely to lead to accurate diagnosis and successful treatment than is “number crunching”. Therefore this book does not aim to replace the judgement of clinicians.

For a broader discussion of the major limitations inherent in attempts to use equations to guide clinical descision-making see chapter 2.