Confused By Laboratory Tests? 4 Resources to Help Translate Them Into English

Medical translators can expect to translate plenty of documents for laboratories over their career. For me, they were among the first documents I ever translated and used to take a substantial amount of time to finish even though they mainly involved short phrases. I would get frustrated because they didn't seem worth my hourly rate.

​Years later and with lots of practice, I now know the majority of laboratory tests by heart, but not all. So, I still need reliable materials to complete certain jobs. Read on to discover some resources that can help translators with common and less common tests.

Why translate laboratory tests?

Laboratory tests check a sample of blood, urine, tissue, or other bodily substance in order to diagnose or monitor a disorder or adjust treatment, among other things. Translators help laboratories create bilingual copies of their lab tests to make them more accessible. They also translate patient-specific test results.

​For example, if a patient is in France but from the USA, they may need those test results translated to send back to their PCP in the States. If a patient is having the tests done as part of clinical trial, the sponsor may send the tests for translation in order to share them with a wider medical audience and, ultimately, get approval for the treatment/indication being tested.

What types of tests get translated?

The ones I see regularly involve cell counts, clotting, and drug concentrations. Hormone levels are commonly tested as well. These tests are a normal part of routine blood work and urinalysis. Patients will go to a hospital lab after fasting 8-12 hours and the lab tech will take a blood and urine sample. Then, the doctor will read the results to see if anything looks abnormal.

​These tests are performed for adults of all ages and children and even newborns. What’s considered normal will depend on age, gender, and sometimes ethnicity. The laboratory’s catalogue of tests will include reference ranges for comparison.

4 Resources

Below are 4 resources to help you find test names in English. With French to English translation, I find it easy to identify most test names in English. If I’m unsure about it, I’ll compare the reference ranges and units of measurement for the tests in the two languages and that is enough evidence for me to draw a conclusion.

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1. The first is for the Mayo Clinic Laboratories general test catalogue. You can search by test name or category. If you’re new to translating laboratory tests, this is a great starting point: https://www.mayocliniclabs.com/test-catalog
2. This one is for allergen tests. It’s the Thermo Fisher Scientific allergen encyclopedia. Recently, I translated my first set of allergen tests and found this resource to be helpful. You can search by name or test code (which seems to be universal). Try it here: https://www.thermofisher.com/phadia/us/en/resources/allergen-encyclopedia.html
3. In the same job as the allergen tests, I also had to translate amino acid concentration tests. The results can point to deficiencies and genetic disorders. For tests on CSF (cerebrospinal fluid), this is a great resource: https://neurology.testcatalog.org/show/AACSF
4. Finally, to test for amino acids in the urine, this is a great resource: https://www.mayocliniclabs.com/test-catalog/overview/60475