At a glance
| Analyte | Magnesium |
|---|---|
| Also called | Mg, Serum magnesium |
| Method | Xylidyl blue colorimetric |
| Sample type | Serum, Plasma, Urine |
| Panel | Inorganic |
| Discipline | Clinical chemistry |
| Brand | Mindray |
What Magnesium measures
Magnesium is a cofactor in a very large number of enzyme reactions and is essential to cardiac and neuromuscular function, yet it is measured far less often than sodium or potassium. Its most practically important role in the laboratory is the one it plays in refractory hypokalaemia: potassium will not correct while magnesium remains low, so a persistently low potassium that resists replacement is a standing indication to measure magnesium. It is also monitored in intensive care, in patients on diuretics or with significant gastrointestinal losses, in alcohol-related illness, and in obstetric patients receiving magnesium sulphate, where the measurement is being used to keep a therapeutic level within a safe range.
How Philippine laboratories run it
The obstetric indication drives a large share of demand in Philippine hospitals, because magnesium sulphate is used in the management of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia and patients on it are monitored by protocol rather than by clinical judgement. That produces urgent, repeated requests on a small number of patients, concentrated in hospitals with a delivery service, and it is a stat pattern rather than a routine one. Laboratories attached to an obstetric unit or an intensive care unit should hold cover for that, since a magnesium request in those settings rarely waits for the next scheduled run.
Analyzers it runs on
Calibrator, controls and companion tests
Delivered with its calibrator, both control levels and the rest of the inorganic panel, on the same schedule as Magnesium.
Storage and handling
Refrigerated and kept closed when off the analyzer.
Buying Magnesium in the Philippines
Magnesium is supplied for the BS-600M, BS-430, BS-360E, BS-240Pro, BS-230 and BA-88A. We deliver it with Multi-Sera Calibrator and Chemistry Control Level 1, because a run held up waiting on a separate order costs the same shift a stock-out does. Delivery is scheduled against your monthly Magnesium count, so the bench is not rationing tests in the last week of the month. How we plan clinical chemistry supply.
Questions about Magnesium
Why check magnesium when the potassium is the problem?
Because a low potassium often will not correct until the magnesium is corrected first. Magnesium depletion promotes renal potassium loss, so replacement is undone as fast as it is given. A hypokalaemia that resists repeated replacement is one of the standing reasons to measure magnesium, and it is a common enough scenario that many units check both together.
Does a normal serum magnesium mean the patient is not depleted?
Not necessarily. Only a small fraction of the body’s magnesium is in the circulation at all, with most of it held in bone and inside cells, so serum can sit within the reference interval while total body stores are low. This is a recognised limitation of the measurement, and it is why the result is read alongside the clinical picture rather than treated as a definitive answer.
Order Magnesium
Tell us your monthly Magnesium volume and we will quote a supply schedule for BS-600M. We reply within one business day.
Request a quotation