Summary: Medical laboratories frequently encounter clinically unexpected results that require timely clinical evaluation because they may indicate an imminent life-threatening condition or a major clinical deterioration. Laboratories, therefore, need to identify and report such results sooner than they normally would, and have policies and procedures that minimize the possibility of patient harm due to delayed clinical attention. The concept of these so-called "panic values" was raised by George Lundberg in 1970, but a variety of other terms have since appeared in the literature. For example, urgent, critical, acute, alert, abnormal, markedly or significantly abnormal, clinically significant, vital, red or orange or yellow zone values, and various combinations of terms.
