BACKGROUND Blood samples are usually collected daily from different collection points, such hospitals and health centers, and transported to a core laboratory for testing. This paper presents a project to improve the collection routes of two of the largest clinical laboratories in Spain. These routes must be designed in a cost-efficient manner while satisfying two important constraints: (i) two...

We demonstrate the efficient separation of blood cells from millilitre volumes of whole blood in minutes using a simple gravity sedimentation device. Blood cell and plasma separation is often the initial step in clinical diagnostics, and reliable separation techniques have remained a major obstacle for the success of point-of-care or remote diagnostics. Unlike plasma collection devices that rel...

This paper reports a novel centrifugal microfluidic device for integrated sample preparation of large-volume whole blood samples for nucleic acid analysis. We present a device capable of processing 2 milliliters of undiluted blood while still allowing for the integration with downstream amplification and detection steps. In biological validation experiments, this device was shown to yield separ...

In view of the growing interest in blood concentrations of fibronectin (FN) it is appropriate to sound a note of caution regarding the preparation and storage of specimens for FN measurement. We used blood from 12 volunteers to investigate the effect of using different anticoagulants in plasma preparation, different clotting times in serum preparation, and storage of these samples, on FN concen...

To the Editor: The article by Edwards et al. (1) contained several errors regarding testing, results, and interpretation of results. The authors incorrectly described the testing performed for the cord blood samples. The American Red Cross (ARC) National Testing Laboratory (NTL) (identified as the “American Red Cross National Donor Testing Laboratory” in the article) has never performed indirec...

Las condiciones de las intervenciones de salud en las regiones con dificultades de accesibilidad geográfica y dificultades socioculturales como las comunidades nativas, requieren un trabajo sostenido y de mayor participación tanto del personal de salud como de la comunidad en general. La existencia de alta rotación de personal en zonas del interior del país (1,2) ha contribuido a que las experi...

BACKGROUND Many epidemiologic studies are using metabolomics to discover markers of carcinogenesis. However, limited data are available on the influence of pre-analytic blood collection factors on metabolite measurement. METHODS We quantified 166 metabolites in archived plasma from 423 Health Professionals Follow-up Study and Nurses' Health Study participants using liquid chromatography-tande...

Sepsis, commonly referred to as blood poisoning, is a serious medical condition characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state caused by microbial infection. Rapid treatment is crucial, however, traditional culturebased diagnostics usually takes 2-5 days. The overall aim of the thesis is to develop microfluidic based sample preparation strategies, capable of isolating bacteria from whole bloo...

Background and objectives: All three phases of laboratory testing are equally important for improving total quality management, but the pre-analytical phase is the most error-prone. This study aimed to determine the rate and reasons for blood sample rejection in the pre-analytical phase of laboratory testing in a referral hospital in Ruhengeri, Rwanda. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional...

BACKGROUND Plasma Citrulline concentration has been correlated to functional enterocyte mass. Dried blood spot (DBS) analysis using LC-MSMS reduces sample amount needed. We optimized DBS elution to increase precision and accuracy of DBS LC-MSMS analysis. METHOD DBS control samples were eluted in varying pH (2.2-7.0) and for varying times (15-75 min) and Cit, Arg and Orn were analyzed using LC...