To face known and emerging threats to public health, all countries have to overcome the challenges of providing sufficient supplies of blood and blood products of the highest quality and safety. Unfortunately, self-sufficiency is not yet a reality in many countries. In 2011, experts from WHO addressed the urgent need ...

In 2009, Blood Pressure featured a debate about whether to treat patients with prehypertension (Kiely et al., Blood Press. 2009;18:300-303; McInnes GT, Blood Press. 2009;18:304-307). Our group supported pharmacotherapy for this condition at that time. Since then, additional evidence linking prehypertension with associated morbidities has emerged. These studies are detailed ...

Normal erectile function requires adequate penile arterial inflow, normal penile architecture and an intact venous capacitance system. Vascular disease is the dominant etiology of erectile dysfunction (ED) and current medical therapy increases penile blood flow. However, in a large proportion of patients, medical therapy is inadequate or contraindicated requiring the ...

In patients with suspected sepsis, rapid and accurate diagnosis of the causative infectious agent is critical. Although clinicians often use empiric antimicrobial therapy until the blood cultures are available to potentially adjust treatment, this approach is often not optimum for patient care. Recently, several commercial molecular multiplex technologies have shown ...

BACKGROUND: Tranexamic acid (TXA) administered during arthroplasty intervention can prevent blood loss and blood transfusions. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the benefit of TXA administration on blood transfusion rates in patients undergoing joint arthroplasty, and to perform cost-benefit analysis. METHODS: The study population included 100 patients ...

BACKGROUND: A necessary component of an effective blood management program is the accurate and comprehensive collection and analysis of blood utilization data. This study describes innovative methods for analyzing and presenting data for red blood cell (RBC) utilization that compare hemoglobin (Hb) transfusion triggers and targets to those representing the ...

The phenomenon of postmortem redistribution has long been described, but the processes driving it have not, as yet, been fully elucidated. Peripheral blood samples are currently used, when available, in an effort to minimize the effects of postmortem redistribution on drug concentrations, but what sources of blood are peripheral sources? ...

Parasite presence in any ecosystem generates complex navigating webs (Parasite-NW) within the system, through which parasites move from one to another host. The appropriate assimilation of parasite navigating web is pivotal for a better understanding of pathogen flow in the ecosystem, with implications for disease control. Sarcoptes mite has been ...

Halitosis is a symptom and not a diagnosis. Rather, the topic represents a spectrum of disorders, including intra-oral, otorhinolaryngological, metabolic, systemic, pulmonary, psychological and neurological conditions. Halitosis may be the third most common trigger for patients to seek dental care and can cause significant impact on patient quality of life. ...

Cardiac surgery exerts a significant strain on the blood bank services and is a model example in which a multi-modal blood-conservation strategy is recommended. Significant bleeding during cardiac surgery, enough to cause re-exploration and/or blood transfusion, increases morbidity and mortality. Hyper-fibrinolysis is one of the important contributors to increased bleeding. ...

This article discusses the benefits of dried blood spot sampling and the recent issues that have emerged when this technique is used in the regulated quantitative bioanalytical environment. The author explores what the way forward might be for this important technique and what some of the unexpected benefits of this ...

We examined the clinical and cellular effects of sarcoptic mange on southern hairy-nosed wombats (SHNW, Lasiorhinus latifrons) and the effectiveness of a single dose of ivermectin as a treatment for captive and wild animals. Wambats were caught at three sites in South Australia between April and August 2005 and blood ...

Umbilical cord blood, the blood remaining in the umbilical cord at birth, can be collected at birth and be a source of stem cells for a patient in need of a bone marrow transplant. Obstetricians and other health care practitioners are recognized as a patient's primary source for medical information ...

ISO 15189 has been introduced to enable any clinical laboratory, irrespective of geographic location, to be accredited against internationally recognized standards and therefore facilitate direct international comparison of laboratories. Together with increasing use of ISO 15189 for standardization and competition purposes, often triggered by demands of patients and clinicians, clinical ...

CONTEXT: Blood transfusion has increased significantly during the last decade and blood wastage reduction is a medical and economic challenge in hospital practice and for institutional quality, particularly in the ICU and operating theatre. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of multiple strategies in one hospital to reduce red blood cell ...

Since allogeneic blood transfusion (ABT) is not harmless, multiple alternatives to ABT (AABT) have emerged, though there is great variability in their indications and appropriate use. This variability results from the interaction of a number of factors, including the specialty of the physician, knowledge and preferences, the degree of anemia, ...

BACKGROUND: IL-21 has been shown to play an important role in autoimmune diseases. ATR-107 is an antibody which directly targets the IL-21 receptor (IL-21R). To aid the clinical development of ATR-107, there is a need for understanding the mechanism of action (MOA) of this antibody when assessing target engagement in ...

Millions of blood transfusions are performed yearly worldwide. With respect to its historical origins, this practice began in the 17(th) century with an English physician. In 1666, Richard Lower reported the first successful transfusion between animals. The first transfusion in a human patient was performed the following year by Jean ...

Prior to the advent of recombinant erythropoietin in the late-1980s, blood transfusions were the mainstay of anaemia management in patients with end-stage renal failure, many of whom required "top-up" transfusions every 2 to 4 weeks to relieve the debilitating symptoms of severe anaemia. Erythropoietin therapy, however, allowed for the first ...

BACKGROUND: Autologous blood transfusion (ABT) is currently considered the safest transfusion, since the risks of allogeneic immunological reaction and viral transmission are theoretically null. Although its use has declined in Western countries in the recent decade, it has been progressively expanded in Japan. With the widening of the concept of ...

The foundation of laboratory hematologic diagnosis is the complete blood count and review of the peripheral smear. In patients with anemia, the peripheral smear permits interpretation of diagnostically significant red blood cell (RBC) findings. These include assessment of RBC shape, size, color, inclusions, and arrangement. Abnormalities of RBC shape and ...

Substances produced throughout the body are detectable in the blood, which is the most common biological fluid used in clinical testing. Biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) have long been sought in the blood, but none has become an established or validated diagnostic test. Companion reviews in Alzheimer's Research & Therapy ...

Over 400 cases of pediatric SAA occur annually in the United States. A growing number of children with SAA may have had their stem cells harvested through cord blood collection. We describe a nine-yr-old male with SAA treated successfully with an autologous cord blood transplant following immunoablative chemotherapy. With the ...

As one of the oldest and most common procedures in clinical practice, allogeneic blood transfusions face many issues including questionable safety and efficacy, increasing costs and limited supply. The need to provide effective care for a relatively small population of patients who could not be transfused for various reasons gave ...

In recent years it became increasingly clear that allogeneic red blood cell (RBC) transfusions result in increased mortality and major adverse clinical outcomes. The major risk factors for RBC transfusions are preoperative anaemia, high perioperative blood loss and liberal transfusion triggers. Patient blood management (PBM), the bundle of preoperative anaemia ...

The transfusion of allogeneic blood products has been considered as a life-saving procedure for patients suffering from major traumatic injury and those who are undergoing major surgery. The safety of blood products has improved in terms of infectious complications over the last three decades due to advanced donor screening procedures ...

Patient blood management is now high on national and international health-system agendas. Serious supply challenges as a result of changing population dynamics, escalating cost of blood, ongoing safety challenges and questions about transfusion efficacy and outcomes are necessitating change in transfusion practice. Numerous initiatives are underway to bring about change, ...

Allogeneic blood transfusion has had a central role in the development and practice of numerous medical and surgical advances. In recent years, transfusion has no longer been regarded as essential for the management of a wide range of diseases and most uncomplicated elective surgeries in well-prepared patients should now be ...

This article traces the development of modern patient blood management (PBM) from its origins in 17th-century transfusion to the present day.

One of the main factors that contributes to the need for transfusion in the surgical patient is excessive blood loss. Pillar 2 of patient blood management (PBM) includes all the strategies to reduce bleeding and preserve the patient's own blood, designed with an aim to reducing or avoiding transfusion. Some ...

Multiple marker RT-PCR assay has been established as the most reliable and sensitive approach to identify circulating melanoma cells in peripheral blood of melanoma patients by the detection of one or more melanoma-associated markers of differentiation (MAMs) (1). Their predictive value in melanoma progression, recurrence or response to therapy has ...

PURPOSE: To investigate the pharmacokinetics of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and relationships of HCQ concentration with disease activity variables (concentration-effect relationships) in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). METHODS: HCQ concentration and disease activity were measured at a single time point in 60 patients with SLE, receiving HCQ for at least 6 ...

BACKGROUND: There is a paucity of effective therapies for patients with Sézary syndrome and advanced mycosis fungoides with peripheral blood involvement. Total skin electron beam (TSEB) radiation therapy is an extremely effective skin-directed therapy for these patients, but, until recently, it was thought not to signifcantly affect the peripheral blood ...

Despite the widespread use of allogeneic blood components in clinical practice, there are patients in whom transfusion cannot be carried out for various reasons, including refusal of transfusions because of religious beliefs. The refusal of transfusion is not equivalent to refusal of medical treatment, and numerous options are available to ...

The development of clinically relevant preclinical models that mimic the hallmarks of neurodegenerative disease is an ongoing pursuit in early drug development. In particular, robust physiological characterization of central nervous system (CNS) disease models is necessary to predict drug delivery to target tissues and to correctly interpret pharmacodynamics responses to ...

Aim: Identification of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) by detecting a glycophosphatidylinositol-anchored defect by flow cytometry is presently the standard method of choice for diagnosing PNH. However, the selection of suitable markers will be critical and significantly affect the determination and quantification of PNH clones in various cell lineages. Materials & ...

Sirolimus is a potent blocker of mammalian target of Rapamycin (MTOR), with anti proliferative activity. Its potential for the management of oral cancer has been suggested. Our aim was to establish an analytical method for determining sirolimus levels in human saliva and to calculate the blood vs. saliva ratio in ...

This paper communicates Merck's thoughts on why, when and how to use dried blood spot (DBS) technology in a clinical setting, and provides a strategic approach, emphasizing the necessary steps, for successful clinical implementation of this microsampling technique. PK consideration based on relevant in vitro data, that is, blood-to-plasma ratio, ...

Interventions to change physician transfusion behavior are often evaluated by examining the amount of red blood cell (RBC) units transfused or the proportion of patients transfused before and after the intervention. The pre-transfusion haemoglobin concentration is a sensitive measure of transfusion practice, but has not been used to evaluate behavioral ...

In a previous article, we reviewed the management of blood component recalls and withdrawals (G. Ramsey. Transfusion Med Rev 2004;18:36-45). Since then, US rates of recall and biological product deviation for blood components have improved significantly, particularly with regard to reduced recalls for donor infectious disease risks or testing. However, ...

BACKGROUND: Qualification of a cord blood bank (CBB) is a complex process that includes evaluation of multiple aspects of donor screening and testing, processing, accreditation and approval by professional cell therapy groups, and results of received cord blood units. The University of Minnesota Medical Center Cell Therapy Laboratory has established ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Lead, a serious threat for raptors, can hamper the success of their conservation. This study reports on experience with accidental lead intoxication and responses to chelation therapy in captive Cinereous (Aegypius monachus) and Egyptian (Neophron percnopterus) Vultures. RESULTS: Soil contamination by lead-based paint sanded off the steel aviary ...

The detection of lipaemia in a patient blood sample can be a clinical conundrum as well as an analytical nuisance. With a reported prevalence of 0.7% in all blood samples received for lipid studies its finding has been suggested to be an underappreciated problem [1]. Its presence can have a significant ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Clinical trials offer a unique opportunity to study human disease and response to therapy in a highly controlled setting. The application of high-throughput expression profiling to peripheral blood from clinical trial subjects could facilitate the identification of transcripts that function as prognostic or diagnostic markers of disease or ...

This article describes the incidence and etiology of anemia in critically ill children. In addition, the article details the pathophysiology and clinical ramifications of anemia in this population. The use of transfused packed red blood cells as a therapy for anemia in critically ill patients is also discussed, including the ...

Acute intoxications after ingesting glyphosate are observed in suicidal or accidental cases. Despite low potential toxicity of this herbicide, a number of fatalities and severe outcomes are reported. Indeed, some authors have described the clinical features associated with blood and urine concentrations following intoxication. The purpose of this study is ...

Preoperative over-ordering of blood is common and leads to the wastage of blood bank resources. The preoperative blood ordering and transfusion practices for common elective general surgical procedures were evaluated in our university hospital to formulate a maximum surgical blood order schedule (MSBOS) for those procedures where a cross-match appears ...

This article continues the analyses in Medical History 52 (2008), 73-90, 365-86 of William Harvey's self-understanding as the philosopher and discoverer of the blood's circulation. Harvey brilliantly and subversively assumed the persona of the mythological Hercules to embody his own anatomical labour in De motu cordis et sanguinis (1628). He ...

Leading health care quality organizations say that blood transfusions are among the most overused treatments. The problem wastes a precious resource as well as health care dollars, continues to stretch what is known to be in short supply in some parts of the country. Part of the problem is continued ...

Multiplex, real-time PCR has become an invaluable tool for the rapid identification of pathogens in clinical specimens enabling earlier and more targeted management of antimicrobial therapy. In this chapter, we describe the methodology behind a novel multiplex-tandem PCR (MT-PCR) platform designed for the rapid identification of up to 18 fungal ...