Blog Featured Stories

Newborn screening panels that test for a variety of conditions are available in every state; however, test performance and response rate by each state are very different. Mayo Clinic's Biochemical Genetics Laboratory created the Collaborative Laboratory Integrated Reports tool to mitigate the national (and international) problem of false positives and to raise the bar on test performance.

Using advanced technology, scientists at Chan Zuckerberg (CZ) Biohub, Mayo Clinic and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), have discovered an autoimmune disease that appears to affect men with testicular cancer.

Mayo Clinic Laboratories is the only laboratory in the world to offer testing for a novel form of autoimmune meningoencephalomyelitis. Known as autoimmune glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) astrocytopathy, the condition was identified by Mayo Clinic in 2016. The GFAP antibody test is offered as part of Mayo Clinic Laboratories’ encephalitis and myelopathy evaluations.

Mayo Clinic Laboratories is one of the few laboratories in the country to offer two special sequencing-based tests for bacteria in its catalog. The first test is designed to help protect patients by investigating potential outbreaks of a single bacterial species or by identifying recurrent infections in an individual patient. The second has the ability to detect DNA of any bacteria to help identify the cause of an infection.

Blacklegged ticks (also known as deer ticks) are turning up more frequently in Minnesota, and so are the diseases they carry. Bobbi Pritt, a parasitologist in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, weighs in on the issue.

Cytomegalovirus, or CMV, is a common cause of disease in the transplant population. In some patients who are diagnosed with CMV and are on antiviral treatment for infections, the virus may develop resistance to the drugs. This “Hot Topic” will provide an overview of a new test developed by Mayo Clinic Laboratories, which uses next-generation sequencing technology to identify mutations in the genome of CMV that may be associated with antiviral resistance.

The exponential increase in the number of diagnostic tests available to physicians (in dermatopathology as well as other medical specialties) can be overwhelming, according to a new multi-institutional study co-published in the Journal of Cutaneous Pathology and Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

In the fall of 2017, Shayla Polanchek, a recent recipient of a heart transplant at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, returned to campus to review the specimen of her old heart, the one that had been removed from her chest. She had asked to be reunited one last time with the organ that, though flawed, had kept her alive for 38 years.

Autoimmune neurological disorders can often be treated, sometimes with full restoration of function. However, because the symptoms mimic other conditions, autoimmune neurological disorders are frequently misdiagnosed, resulting in an irreversible loss of function.

Like a thief in the night, multiple myeloma sneaks up on people. The incurable blood cancer almost always starts as a relatively benign condition—monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, or MGUS—that has no symptoms and often goes undiagnosed.

After a long wait, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finally approved the Elecsys Troponin T Gen 5 STAT blood test. Recently, the Beckman hscTnI assay was also approved. These high-sensitivity troponin assays will benefit emergency departments across the country because the results will allow for earlier and faster recognition of acute myocardial infarction, which interrupts the blood supply to an area of the heart.

Now in its second year of a five-year initiative to better understand and detect arboviruses in Belize, the IMPACTS (Integrated Mayo Clinic Program for Arbovirus Community health education Training and Surveillance) project has expanded its focus to include tick-borne infections in addition to mosquito-borne diseases, like Zika and dengue. IMPACTS is a four-tiered project that is a joint effort with Mayo Clinic, the University of Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health, and the Belize Ministry of Health.

Gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) have revolutionized MRIs by increasing the clinical utility and detection sensitivity of these exams. GBCAs also contain gadolinium, a rare earth metal with unique chemical properties. This article discusses the recent discovery that small amounts of gadolinium remain in human brain tissue following intravenous administration of GBCAs.