INTRODUCTION Skin testing with major and minor determinants of benzylpenicillin is the recommended standard practice to evaluate subjects with immediate hypersensitivity to betalactams. The withdrawal of these products from the market has set us back to the early days, before the introduction of reagents for in vivo testing. OBJECTIVES To compare a recently released kit of benzylpenicillin co...

Testing problems in diagnosing human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV) infection, mostly HTLV-II, have been documented in HIV/AIDS patients. Since December 1998, the Immunology Department of Instituto Adolfo Lutz (IAL) offers HTLV-I/II serology to Public Health Units that attend HTLV high-risk individuals. Two thousand, three hundred and twelve serum samples: 1,393 from AIDS Reference Centers (Group ...

Testing is an effective practice to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2. PCR accurate method detect SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals, but lab test kits are scarce and expensive resources. Therefore, their usage should be optimized. in batch (pooling) a procedure that merges individuals’ swabs, allowing group diagnosis without affecting accuracy results. Savings on depend prevalence disease, pool comp...

HIV rapid tests are widely used in resource limited settings. Dried blood spots on filter paper are an easy way to collect and transport blood samples from a remote area to a testing facility at ambient temperatures. Our objective was to evaluate the technical possibility of testing antibodies to HIV from filter paper using HIV rapid tests kits. Dried blood spots on filter paper were obtained f...

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidelines state that dose calibrators must be tested for linearity upon installation and quarterly thereafter over a range of activities from 10 ~J,Ci (370 kBq) to the highest dose administered to the patient (300 mCi [11.1 GBq] ofiodine-131 for therapy at our institution). The simplest method of linearity testing utilizes commercial attenuator kits. These k...

BACKGROUND Recently, two excellent methods have been used for the diagnosis of Legionnaires' disease: urinary antigen detection and PCR. The purpose of the present study is to analyze and evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of three different urinary antigen detection kits as well as PCR. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 148 samples were collected from 33 patients between 1993 and 2004. ...

An evaluation of three new rapid diagnostic test kits for human immunodeficiency virus types 1 and 2 (HIV-1/2), hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), and syphilis involved a two-phase comparison of rapid diagnostic assays using prospectively collected from hospitals and clinics in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. After specificity and sensitivity testing, three new rapid diagnostic test kits were test...

OBJECTIVE To develop a single, short, acceptable, and validated postal questionnaire for assessing patients' experiences of the process and outcome of day surgery. DESIGN Interviews and review of existing questionnaires; piloting and field testing of draft questionnaires; consistency and validity checks. SETTING Four hospitals, in Coventry (two), Swindon, and Milton Keynes. PATIENTS 373 p...