The goal of clinical laboratories is to produce accurate information for clinical decision making in medicine. More than half of the medical decisions made depend on clinical laboratory tests. Patient safety represents an important and critical problem for laboratories. They need to assure that the information they deliver to physicians is accurate, and therefore safe for clinicians to use. Endogenous compounds can interfere with laboratory tests, decreasing accuracy and threatening patient safety. Elevated bilirubin (bilirubinemia) and elevated lipids (lipemia) are common conditions that cause significant interferences with laboratory results. Clinicians depend on laboratories to detect these endogenous interferences. Laboratories must have a means to detect these endogenous interferences, make decisions about reporting results, and evaluate their impact. Most clinical pathology books provide only an abbreviated introduction to the subject, or provide a long list of references, without the necessary foundation for evaluating their significance. Package inserts typically provide scant information. This book provides the empirical and theoretical foundation for these interferences, describes the clinical settings where they occur, and explains their evaluation and detection, allowing the laboratory to interpret the available data on interferences and make the appropriate decision to effectively report test results while protecting patient safety.

Completely revised new edition of the definitive reference on disorders of hemoglobin.

This volume compiles accepted contributions for the 2nd Edition of the Colombian Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Congress CCBCOL, after a rigorous review process in which 54 papers were accepted for publication from 119 submitted contributions. Bioinformatics and Computational Biology are areas of knowledge that have emerged due to advances that have taken place in the Biological Sciences and its integration with Information Sciences. The expansion of projects involving the study of genomes has led the way in the production of vast amounts of sequence data which needs to be organized, analyzed and stored to understand phenomena associated with living organisms related to their evolution, behavior in different ecosystems, and the development of applications that can be derived from this analysis.

Hemocompatibility of Biomaterials for Clinical Applications: Blood-Biomaterials Interactions summarizes the state-of-the-art on this important subject. The first part of the book reviews the latest research on blood composition and response, mechanisms of coagulation, test standards and methods. Next, the book assesses techniques for modifying biomaterial surfaces and developing coatings to improve hemocompatibility. In the final sections, users will find discussions on ways to improve the hemocompatibility of particular classes of biomaterials and a review of methods for improving medical devices. - Provides comprehensive information on the fundamentals of hemocompatibility and new technologies - Combines research in the biomaterials field in a digestible format for clinical applications - Provides a complete overview biomaterials in current use and test methods

This volume reviews the fundamental understanding of this potentially life-threatening disease and the advances in treatment that have been achieved with the use of the monoclonal antibody eculizumab. Although the PIGA gene has been known for many years, the mechanism of clonal dominance in paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria is still largely unknown. This book, Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria, discusses the direction of continuing research in this area, as well as the potential for the development of management guidelines. It serves as a valuable source of information for both basic scientists and physicians, especially immunologists targeting GPI-anchored proteins and complements, and hematologists specializing in bone marrow failure.

Volume 1 of the Prevention Book presents the principles of a programme for the prevention of the thalassaemia and other haemoglobin disorders, including a description of the various types of disorders requiring prenatal diagnosis, the strategies used for carrier screening, and a number of annexes listing upto date epidemiological and mutation data on thalassaemia. This book was written for use in combination with Volume 2, which describes many of the laboratory protocols in great detail.