Talk:Base excess

The definition isn't accurate: The pressure of carbondioxide has to be held at a constant standardized value. That's the point of using the BE. You can determine the cause of a pH disturbance.

TC, MD sept.2008

The definition is wrong : adding base in presence of base excess will never return blood pH to normal (7.40) ...

Base excess is the amount of acid - not base - required to return blood pH to normal.

SB

April 19, 2008. Page has been corrected. Now ok.

SB

"A base excess value exceeding +3 indicates that a patient has blood that requires abnormally increased amounts of acid to return the pH to neutral, thus indicating alkalosis"

This is true, but very misleading. An increased base excess will as a rule be present both in respiratory acidosis, but also in metabolic alkalosis.

LF, January 27th 2009

Complaint that this article is hard to understand
I have rarely been able to make so little sense out of a page in Wikipedia. Forgive my arrogance, but I feel this article is much harder to understand than the underlying subject matter would require. If someone would please clean up?!? Just adding correct formulae in the calculation part ("HCO3" is not a number!!) would already be a big help! Thanks a lot!!!! 196.3.50.254 (talk) 18:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * HCO3 is a variable - the concentration of bicarbonate that you measure in the patient - so you substitute this value into the forumula to calculate base excess. I will make this a bit clearer by putting it in square brackets, which denote concentration. Will you tell me if it's better? RupertMillard (Talk) 11:15, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Hemoglobin in definition of standard base excess
with 5g/l man would suffer from severe anemia and would probably be dead. The standard value within physiological frame for both man and woman is 15g/l. Could somebody, please, check the definition? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.49.114.178 (talk) 21:21, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Standard Base Excess is the Base Excess value calculated for anemic blood (Hb = 5 g/dl) on the principle that this closely represents the behavior of the whole human being. The rationale for this is that in the whole body, hemoglobin effectively buffers the plasma and the much larger extracellular fluid, i.e., it corresponds to anemic blood. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.49.114.178 (talk) 12:20, 21 January 2014 (UTC)