The global pandemic due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has posed an overall threat to modern medicine. The course of the disease is uncertain with varying forms of presentation that cannot be managed solely with clinical skills and vigor. Since its inception, laboratory medicine forms a backbone for the proper diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, and prediction of the severity of the disease. Clinical biochemistry, an integral component of laboratory medicine, has been an unsung hero in the disease prognosis and severity assessment in COVID-19. This review attempts to highlight the biomarkers which have shown a significant role and can be used in the identification, stratification, and prediction of disease severity in COVID-19 patients. It also highlights the basis of the use of these biomarkers in the disease course and their implications.

Introduction: Looking at the health status of our country Nepal, iron deficiency anemia fits rightly in our socioeconomic status and dyslipidemia is the rising one along with being more highlighted these days. Some studies show an association between iron deficiency anemia and dyslipidemia but the data are controversial. Therefore, this study is aimed to find the relationship between iron deficiency anemia and serum lipid profile in the Nepalese context.Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in KIST Medical College and Teaching Hospital from June 2019 to August 2020. 76 Iron deficiency anemia and 75 age and sex-matched healthy control were investigated for any possible changes in serum lipid profile: triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein, and total cholesterol.Results: The mean triglyceride in case and control was 92.96 mg/dl and 99.87 mg/dl respectively. The difference between these two groups was statistically significant (p=<0.001). Moreover, serum total cholesterol level in the case (138.82 mg/dl) was significantly lower than the control (146.67 mg/dl). The mean high-density lipoprotein was almost the same in anemic and non-anemic groups, p=<0.001. While the mean low-density lipoprotein in theiron-deficiency anemia group was significantly lower than the control group (p=<0.001).Conclusions: In this study, the values of the lipid profile parameters: triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein, and total cholesterol in cases were found to be lower than those in the controls.

Health Care services is considered as an amalgamation between the doctor undergoing the examination and laboratory personnel behind the proper diagnosis of the patient. It has evolved to a large extent from a simple process of examination to handling the prescription to the patient. During this evolution, there has been a remarkable development in the field of laboratory diagnosis. A good laboratory is abided by the rule of quality services including quality control; both internal and external. External quality assessment program contributes to the long term accuracy of the analytical method used by the laboratory. It determines the number of quality element of the practicing laboratory and helps in the upliftment of the status of the laboratory to laboratory accreditation and certification. This review article is intended to review the importance of the external quality assessment program over internal quality control, its need in the laboratory and the current practices in external quality assessment. Medline search was done for the articles published in English language from 1945 to 2018. Keywords employed to search the articles were external quality assessment, EQA programs, quality assurance, and quality control in clinical biochemistry, respectively. We searched for any articles with the details of external quality assessment tools that were original articles, review, editorial and the official website of the EQAS program. The unavailable articles were searched through research gate and the authors were requested for full text. A total of 5 full text original research article were found and rest of the articles like review article, editorial, national policy were studied in detail. Standard textbooks for clinical chemistry and chapters for EQA under quality assurance was reread in detail. Studies and policy makers have depicted that External Quality Assessment scheme (EQAS) as an integral component for the efficient and high quality laboratory operation. The western countries haizve their own laboratory accreditation body which conducts the EQAS program and offers participation to other clinical laboratories. Countries in South East Asia have shown to be burgeoning in the field of EQA program with establishment of their own laboratory accreditation bodies and incorporating the non-accredited laboratories in EQA programs.