A type of REQUEST FOR DIAGNOSTIC TEST.

A request for one or more investigations within a PATHOLOGY SPECIALTY, from a single sample, or group of related samples, taken from a PATIENT or other human or non-human source and sent to a pathology laboratory at one time.

If investigations within more than one PATHOLOGY SPECIALTY are requested from the same sample a REQUEST FOR PATHOLOGY INVESTIGATION for each PATHOLOGY SPECIALTY will be recorded accordingly.

Examples of REQUESTS FOR PATHOLOGY INVESTIGATION are as follows:

a.	In chemical pathology, each sample of blood accompanied by a REQUEST FOR PATHOLOGY INVESTIGATION for any number of different serum assays constitutes a single request
b.	In haematology, a REQUEST FOR PATHOLOGY INVESTIGATION on a single sample of blood from one patient could include a number of tests, for example, a haemoglobin estimation, differential white cell count and a sickle cell test
c.	In histopathology, several pieces of tissue, such as multiple jejunal biopsies or a breast with associated tissues, whether dissected or not, constitute one REQUEST FOR PATHOLOGY INVESTIGATION
d.	In immunopathology a sample of blood with a request for an auto- antibody screen and immune complement assays constitutes a single REQUEST FOR PATHOLOGY INVESTIGATION
e.	In microbiology, one or more throat swabs from a patient, requiring identification of the pathogenic organism with its antibiotic susceptibility, constitutes a single REQUEST FOR PATHOLOGY INVESTIGATION

Further clarification of the definition of a single REQUEST FOR PATHOLOGY INVESTIGATION is that a single request can only be associated with a number of samples if each sample is:

a.	Of the same type
b.	Taken from the patient at the same time, i.e. within a few minutes
c.	Received by a laboratory at the same time, AND
d.	Analysed (has one or more tests performed on it) by the same laboratory

This class is also known by these names:

Context	Alias
plural	REQUESTS FOR PATHOLOGY INVESTIGATION