Hot Topic

In this month’s “Hot Topic,” Bobbi Pritt, M.D., will talk about the different ticks that commonly bite humans, where they can be found, and how to avoid them.

In this month’s two-part “Hot Topic” series, Joaquin Garcia, M.D., and Tiffany Mainella, HTL(ASCP), review the main components of training clinical laboratory staff and discuss how to ensure your trainers are capable of instructing them.

In this month’s “Hot Topic,” Brad Karon, M.D., Ph.D., presents a case-based scenario on drawing blood from a patient receiving intravenous fluids.

In this month’s “Hot Topic,” Robin Patel, M.D., will review the laboratory methods used to diagnose infectious endocarditis. Specifically, she’ll discuss the role of blood cultures, nucleic acid amplification tests, histopathology, and recently, broad-range bacterial sequencing, and how these methods can assist in the diagnosis of this disease.

In this month’s “Hot Topic,” Melissa Snyder, Ph.D., will review the diagnostic testing algorithms for celiac disease and highlight the advantages and limitations of certain tests, including serology and genetic assays.

In this month’s “Hot Topic,” Elitza Theel, Ph.D. will discuss a new interferon-gamma release assay that can assist in the detection of individuals that are infected with tuberculosis.

In this months "Hot Topic," Christopher Desens, MLS(ASCP) discusses the preparation of platelet-poor plasma for coagulation testing.

In this month’s “Hot Topic,” Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich, Ph.D., will provide you with valuable information regarding the utility of the prostate specific antigen test, and how the calculation of a prostate health index, or phi, can help to stratify a patient’s risk for prostate cancer and reduce unnecessary biopsies.

In this “Hot Topic,” William Nichols, M.D., presents a case study that demonstrates how pre- and postanalytic variables of the patient and blood samples can have confounding effects on the laboratory evaluation of coagulation disorders.

The differential diagnosis for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) includes irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). While the clinical presentation is similar, IBD is an inflammatory disease, while IBS is a noninflammatory disease. View this "Hot Topic" to learn about testing for IBD and IBS.

Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN) is a pattern of glomerular injury. Based on the etiology of MPGN, Drs. Sethi and Fervenza proposed a new histologic classification of MPGN into Ig/IC-mediated MPGN and complement-mediated MPGN. In this “Hot Topic,” Senjeev Sethi, M.D., Ph.D., demonstrates the use of the new classification with case studies.

Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN) is a pattern of glomerular injury. Based on the etiology of MPGN, Drs. Sethi and Fervenza proposed a new histologic classification of MPGN into Ig/IC-mediated MPGN and complement-mediated MPGN. In this “Hot Topic,” Senjeev Sethi, M.D., Ph.D., demonstrates the use of the new classification with case studies.

In this “Hot Topic,” Bobbi Pritt, M.D., discusses how Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne illness in the United States and Europe and caused primarily by Borrelia burgdorferi in the United States, while B burgdorferi, B afzelii, and B garinii cause Lyme disease in Europe. We will also discuss using PCR and melting curve analysis to identify a new species of Borrelia.