Laboratory utilization

Cytogenomic microarray allows assessment of the genome at higher resolutions than traditional karyotyping. The objective of this study is to evaluate the utility of microarray in a routine fetal autopsy setting before the advent of routine fetal exome/genome sequencing and the issues these technologies may generate. A systematic review of fetal postmortems at 12-24 weeks gestation between January 2011 and December 2014 was undertaken. Cases where there was no consent for audit, research, or genetic testing were excluded as were cases referred to the Procurator Fiscal, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths...

Genome-scale metabolic reconstructions have proven to be valuable resources in enhancing our understanding of metabolic networks as they encapsulate all known metabolic capabilities of the organisms from genes to proteins to their functions. However the complexity of these large metabolic networks often hinders their utility in various practical applications. Although reduced models are commonly used for modeling and in integrating experimental data, they are often inconsistent across different studies and laboratories due to different criteria and detail, which can compromise transferability of the findings and also integration of experimental data from different groups...

Because of the relatively short lifespans of beef cattle, membrane trafficking in relation to inflammation is not considered important unless it overtly affects productivity. However, glucose uptake and utilization is important for adipose tissue development in beef cattle, and increasing glucose utilization in intramuscular adipose tissue can increase carcass quality. Research from the 1980s demonstrated a lack of insulin sensitivity in isolated bovine adipocytes and adipose tissue explants incubated in vitro...

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is increasingly recognized as a significant public health problem which warrants additional research. Part of the effort to understand mTBI and concussion includes modeling in animals. Controlled cortical impact (CCI) is a commonly employed and well-characterized model of experimental TBI that has been utilized for three decades. Today, several commercially available pneumatic- and electromagnetic-CCI devices exist as do a variety of standard and custom injury induction tips...

Escherichia coli FB-04(pta1), a recombinant L-tryptophan production strain, was constructed in our laboratory. However, the conversion rate (L-tryptophan yield per glucose) of this strain is somewhat low. In this study, additional genes have been deleted in an effort to increase the conversion rate of E. coli FB-04(pta1). Initially, the pykF gene, which encodes pyruvate kinase I (PYKI), was inactivated to increase the accumulation of phosphoenolpyruvate, a key L-tryptophan precursor. The resulting strain, E...

A trend towards the abandonment of obtaining pure culture isolates in frontline laboratories is at a crossroads with the ability of public health agencies to perform their basic mandate of foodborne disease surveillance and response. The implementation of culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDTs) including nucleic acid and antigen-based assays for acute gastroenteritis is leaving public health agencies without laboratory evidence to link clinical cases to each other and to food or environmental substances...

BACKGROUND: One of the reasons why Isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) for Tuberculosis (TB) is not widely used in low income countries is concerns on cost of excluding active TB. We analyzed the cost-effectiveness of IPT provision in Tanzania having ruled out active TB by a symptom-based screening tool. METHODS: Data on IPT cost-effectiveness was prospectively collected from an observational cohort study of 1283 HIV-infected patients on IPT and 1281 controls; followed up for 24 months...

Colorimetric tests are becoming increasingly popular in point-of-need analyses due to the possibility of detecting the signal with the naked eye, which eliminates the utilization of bulky and costly instruments only available in laboratories. However, colorimetric tests may be interpreted incorrectly by nonspecialists due to disparities in color perception or a lack of training. Here we solve this issue with a method that not only detects colorimetric signals but also interprets them so that the test outcome is understandable for anyone...

It is generally recommended that sepsis patients should have at least two blood cultures obtained before antimicrobial therapy. From 1995 to 2015, the number of blood cultures taken each year in a 1,100-bed public referral hospital in Ubon Ratchathani northeast Thailand rose from 5,235 to 56,719, whereas the number received in an 840-bed referral public hospital in south Sulawesi, Indonesia, in 2015 was 2,779. The proportion of patients sampled for blood cultures out of all inpatients in south Sulawesi in 2015 (9%; 2,779/30,593) was lower than that in Ubon Ratchathani in 2003 (13%; 8,707/66,515), at a time when health expenditure per capita in the two countries was comparable...

Infectious disease surveillance is hindered by several factors, including limited infrastructure and geographic isolation of many resource-poor regions. In addition, the complexities of sample acquisition, processing, and analysis, even in developed regions, can be rate limiting. Therefore, new strategies to survey human populations for emerging pathogens are necessary. Xenosurveillance is a method that utilizes mosquitoes as sampling devices to search for genetic signatures of pathogens in vertebrates. Previously we demonstrated that xenosurveillance can detect viral RNA in both laboratory and field settings...

Performance of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is associated with several occupational hazards including radiation exposure and musculoskeletal injury. Current methods to mitigate these risks range from suspended radiation suits to adjustable lead-lined glass shields. Robotic-assisted PCI is a novel approach to PCI that utilizes remote-controlled technology to manipulate catheters thereby significantly reducing radiation exposure to the operator and catheterization laboratory staff. Although limited, current evidence indicates that robotic-assisted PCI is associated with a high technical success rate and may have additional advantages over conventional PCI, such as a decreased incidence of geographical miss...

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA analysis has been shown to be useful for early detection, prognostication, and monitoring of treatment response of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), and the recent literature provides growing evidence of the clinical utility of EBV DNA testing, particularly to inform treatment decisions for NPC patients. Despite the fact that NPC is a rare disease, the NRG Oncology cooperative group has successfully activated a phase 2/3 randomized clinical trial for NPC with international partners and in that process has discovered that the development of a harmonized EBV DNA test is absolutely critical for integration into clinical trials and for future deployment in clinical and central laboratories...

Broadband SFG spectroscopy is shown to offer considerable advantages over scanning systems in terms of signal-to-noise ratios when probing well-formed single-component supported lipid bilayers formed from zwitterionic lipids with PC headgroups. The SFG spectra obtained from bilayers formed from DOPC, POPC, DLPC, DMPC, DPPC and DSPC show a common peak at ∼2980 cm(-1), which is subject to interference between the C-H and the O-H stretches from the aqueous phase, while membranes having transition temperatures above the laboratory temperature produce SFG spectra with at least two additional peaks, one at ∼2920 cm(-1) and another at ∼2880 cm(-1)...

Introduction Current guidelines suggest the use of the more specific Wells' score could safely reduce the number of unnecessary scans. There is a lack of research to support whether these guidelines apply to the African American population. This study aims to evaluate the correlation of clinical pretest probability of pulmonary embolism (PE) with ventilation-perfusion (V/Q) scan results in a predominantly African American population and to test whether current guidelines based on studies conducted in other populations hold true in this group...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Experiential learning can provide students in entry-level physical therapy (PT) education programs the opportunity to practice skills and techniques, learned in the classroom, in a real-world setting. Experiential learning is currently being utilized in all entry-level PT programs in the form of professional practice experiences but may be integrated throughout the curriculum to enhance student engagement and knowledge application and retention. The purpose of this paper is to express the need for increased integration of experiential learning into entry-level PT education curricula...

Acute pancreatitis is a rapid onset of inflammation of the pancreas causing mild to severe life threatening conditions [1, 2]. In Canada, acute pancreatitis is the 5th most expensive digestive disease in Canada with a considerable economic burden on the health care system [3]. The diagnosis of acute pancreatitis is usually based on the presence of abdominal pain and elevated levels of serum amylase and/or lipase. Many health care centers use either serum amylase, lipase or both to diagnose acute pancreatitis without considering which one could provide a better diagnostic accuracy...

AIM: To assess the impact of the introduction of rotavirus vaccination in New Zealand at a regional and national level, underlining the utility of a passively collected laboratory dataset. METHOD: Retrospective laboratory data for rotavirus testing from Wellington and Hutt Hospitals from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2016, matched with hospital admissions data of children under 5years of age with gastroenteritis primary and secondary coded admissions. The second part of the study examined the national dataset of primary coded hospital gastroenteritis admissions from the same period...

BACKGROUND: In sub-Saharan Africa, rates of sustained HIV virologic suppression remain below international goals. HIV resistance testing, while common in resource-rich settings, has not gained traction due to concerns about cost and sustainability. OBJECTIVE: We designed a randomized clinical trial to determine the feasibility, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of routine HIV resistance testing in sub-Saharan Africa. APPROACH: We describe challenges common to intervention studies in resource-limited settings, and strategies used to address them, including: (1) optimizing generalizability and cost-effectiveness estimates to promote transition from study results to policy; (2) minimizing bias due to patient attrition; and (3) addressing ethical issues related to enrollment of pregnant women...

Objectives This study aimed to investigate the energy expenditure of common office-based tasks. The objectives were to: (a) test the classification of tasks as sedentary or light-intensity physical activity and (b) compare the energy expenditure of tasks under two postural conditions (sitting and standing). Background The sedentary nature of office work has been highlighted as a health risk, and strategies to reduce sedentary behavior at work have been developed. However, there is limited evidence to guide the utilization of sit-stand workstations in the workplace for metabolic health benefits...

BACKGROUND: Delayed or wrong diagnosis of acute appendicitis in patients results in complications like perforation, gangrene, etc. which carries a significant amount of morbidity and mortality to the patients. Thus, timely diagnosis of acute appendicitis is crucial to prevent these complications. Recently, it was found that serum C-reactive protein (CRP) individually can be a useful marker, thus in resource limited settings (i.e., access to ultrasonography) simple laboratory investigation can be of extreme utility for the diagnosis of acute appendicitis...