Field of medicine: Laboratory medicine.

Format: Softcover book.

Audience: All physicians who report or interpret laboratory data.

Purpose: To assist with conversion of the traditional laboratory units currently used in most U.S. hospitals and laboratories into international SI units (le Systeme International d'Unites), which are endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and are used in most countries other than the United States.

Content: Approximately 75% of the book consists of tables. The major Table lists normalized values of clinical chemical analytes and hematologic measurements. For each item, the values for normal healthy persons are expressed in traditional and SI units. A conversion factor is listed for each item so that the reader may use this book as a manual for converting traditional units into SI units. In addition to other tabular material, the book contains five informative chapters that provide historical background, explain basic concepts of the SI system, and give guidelines for introducing the system into hospital practice.

Highlights: The most valuable part of the book is the tabular data in Appendix 1. Although similar conversion tables are printed from time to time in major medical journals, it is convenient to have these lists in one book, where they can be found more readily.

Limitations: The SI system of reporting laboratory values is currently used worldwide except in the United States and a few smaller countries. Although the U.S. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act in 1975, neither the metric system nor SI units are widely used. Several attempts have been made to introduce SI units into U.S. hospitals, but most laboratories still report their findings in traditional values. Few U.S. physicians are familiar with SI units, and it is unlikely that this system will become more popular in the foreseeable future. Until SI units become more widely used by U.S. laboratories and accepted by practicing physicians, this book will have limited appeal. It will be useful primarily to medical writers who need to convert traditional units into SI units to meet journal requirements.

Related reading: Although similar manuals were published in the 1980s by the American Medical Association and WHO, this book is much more thorough and up to date, superseding all previous manuals of its kind.

Reviewer: Ivan Damjanov, MD, PhD, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Kansas City, Kansas.