James, 55, is a retired accountant who has booked a short appointment at his regular general practice for a review of his type 2 diabetes.
His GP had organised for the routine blood tests required to be performed a week before the appointment. By inadvertently ticking E/LFT on the request form instead of U and E, she included liver function tests among these. Results show raised values for AST of 88 U/L (normal range for lab 5-40 U/L) and ALT of 65 U/L (normal range for lab 7-56 U/L) among otherwise normal LFT values. The GP notices that there were similar levels on the test at the last review.
