How can you identify and handle potentially interfering substances in a specimen?

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Recognizing interfering substances hinges on noticing how the specimen looks and understanding how those appearances can affect test results. Lipemia, icterus, and hemolysis each create distinct visual cues: lipemia makes the plasma milky or turbid, icterus colors it yellow-orange, and hemolysis gives a pink to red tinge from released red-cell contents. These conditions can distort many assays because lipids scatter light in photometric measurements, bilirubin can alter color-based readings, and liberated intracellular components (like potassium and enzymes) can skew results.

Because of these potential distortions, the safest and most reliable approach is to reject the specimen or request a recollection, and inform the laboratory. That allows the lab to either use alternate testing strategies, provide note annotations, or request a new sample collected under proper conditions. Proceeding with testing as normal risks inaccurate results, and diluting the sample doesn’t actually remove the interference and can misrepresent true values. Re-running the test until the interference disappears isn’t a dependable fix because the underlying issue may persist and still affect the outcome.