AMA Manual of Style - Stacy L. Christiansen, Cheryl Iverson 2020
Laboratory Values
Correct and Preferred Usage
Usually, in reports of clinical or laboratory data, the substance per se is not reported; rather, a value is given that was obtained by measuring a substance or some function or constituent of it. For example, one does not report hemoglobin but hemoglobin level. Some other correct forms are as follows:
agglutination titer
antinuclear antibody titer
creatinine level or clearance
differential white blood cell count
erythrocyte sedimentation rate
hemagglutination inhibition titer
high-density lipoprotein fraction
increase in antibody level
increase in bilirubin level
mean corpuscular volume
platelet count
prothrombin time
pulse rate
serum phosphorus concentration
total serum cholesterol value or level or concentration
24-hour urine output or volume
urinary placental growth factor concentration
urinary protein excretion
In reports of findings from clinical examinations or laboratory values, data may be enumerated without repeating value, level, etc, in accordance with the following example:
Laboratory values were as follows: white blood cell count, 19.5×103/μL; hemoglobin, 12.9 g/dL; hematocrit, 38.5; platelet count, 203; and international normalized ratio, 1.1.