Ammonia expressed in ummol/L ???

[kdon27]

Hi all,

First, thanks for reading =)

I'm doing an assignment on patho for a patient and the mock progress notes for my "patient" show her ammonia is 62 ummol/L. I looked up the normal and found it to be 540-740 umol/L.

What puzzles me is the units used to express the ammonia level - does anybody know what this could mean?

By the way, she looks to be in liver failure/hepatic encephalopathy.

Thank-you!

[mindlor]

Hi all,

First, thanks for reading =)

I'm doing an assignment on patho for a patient and the mock progress notes for my "patient" show her ammonia is 62 ummol/L. I looked up the normal and found it to be 540-740 umol/L.

What puzzles me is the units used to express the ammonia level - does anybody know what this could mean?

By the way, she looks to be in liver failure/hepatic encephalopathy.

Thank-you!

Not sure where you are looking but Davis' Comprehensive Handbook of Laboaratory Tests indicates that normal ammonia for a female to be 14-62, and a male 19-73 (all in ummol/L)

ergo, by my reckoning this level is on the high side of normal which would not indicate an issue with the liver in and of itself.......

[kdon27]

Thank-you! :)