Home▸Medical Technology & Imaging Physics▸The Anion Gap: A Clinical Detective Tool for Diagnosing Metabolic Acidosis

🧪 The Anion Gap: A Clinical Detective Tool for Diagnosing Metabolic Acidosis

Learn how a simple calculation from routine blood chemistry, the anion gap, helps clinicians distinguish between different causes of metabolic acidosis and narrow a broad differential to a short, actionable list.

Medical Technology & Imaging Physics3DModerate60 FPS

This simulator demonstrates how adjusting serum sodium, chloride, and bicarbonate changes the calculated anion gap, and how that result classifies a case of metabolic acidosis as either a high anion gap or a normal anion gap process.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the sodium, chloride, and bicarbonate values to see the anion gap calculated in real time, and observe how different combinations point toward accumulating unmeasured acids versus direct bicarbonate loss.

💡 Did You Know?

Because albumin is a major unmeasured anion, a patient with critically low albumin can have a dangerously elevated true anion gap that appears deceptively normal on the standard calculation.

⚙ Under the hood

anion gapmetabolic acidosisacid base balanceelectrolytesclinical chemistrykidney physiologydiabetic ketoacidosislactic acidosis

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install