Infectious diseases are common differentials for many of our clinical cases. While most are caused by obligate infectious agents, some can be caused by opportunistic infections. Different infectious agents means that different diagnostic tests may be appropriate to diagnose them (e.g. not all infectious agents are easily cultured); stage of infection, burden of infection and host factors may also influence choice of tests. More than one test my be required to confirm infection, and screening tests may require confirmatory tests or auxiliary tests to confirm infection. This creates a myriad of choices of tests that may be challenging to navigate, and to interpret when conflicting results are obtained from different diagnostic tests for the same patient. Optimal diagnostic outcome also depends on the quality of the submitted sample. In this overview webinar we will briefly discuss different laboratory tests available for diagnosis of infectious disease, general interpretation guidelines and sample requirements. This webinar is provided by BSAVA Education Partner IDEXX. A collection of IDEXX ‘topic of the month’ webinars is available here.