Stories

For people with encephalitis, rapid treatment of their acute brain inflammation is critical for avoiding devastating physical and cognitive deficits. But appropriate treatment requires identifying the culprit causing the symptoms.

A breakthrough in pathology, achieved more than a century ago (allegedly on a frozen window ledge in Rochester, Minnesota) has evolved into an innovative aspect of care at Mayo Clinic. Mayo is one of the only medical centers in the United States to routinely use a tissue-freezing process that provides analysis of tissue samples while the patient is still in the operating room.

By taking into account an individual’s genes, lifestyle, and environment, precision medicine offers the prospect of finding individualized therapies that might ultimately cure diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Yet, as with other technological revolutions, precision medicine’s quest for innovation bumps up against a host of legal issues—for patients as well as laboratories and providers of care.

A recent Mayo Clinic study has found that many U.S. health care providers are habitually ordering a mostly unnecessary, and quite expensive, genetic test to identify a patient’s hereditary risk of venous thromboembolism.

A team of Mayo Clinic pathologists have discovered a new tissue biomarker, DNAJB9, for fibrillary glomerulonephritis, a rare kidney disease of unknown pathogenesis and poor outlook—nearly half of all patients end up on dialysis within four years of diagnosis.

In the war against microbes, human beings are vastly outnumbered—and losing the weapons race.

Teamwork is critical among staff from Mayo Clinic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Minnesota Department of Health, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in order to keep tabs on tick trends and defend against vector-borne diseases.

Blood transfusion is the most common procedure performed in hospitals in the U.S. Yet published evidence shows significant gaps in clinicians' knowledge of this critical aspect of patient care, including possible adverse reactions that can occur after blood transfusion. James Stubbs, M.D.; Daryl Kor, M.D.; and Justin Kreuter, M.D., offer five steps for improving the safety and efficacy of the transfusion-medicine practice.

Laboratories face increasing pressure to automate their operations as they are challenged by a continuing increase in workload, a need to reduce expenditure, and a demand for accuracy and improved turnaround time—essentially doing more with less. Mayo Medical Laboratories implemented a sort automation system to ensure continuous testing operations while improving turnaround time, decreasing laboratory errors, and increasing accuracy and throughput.

Greg Widseth was suddenly hit by a rare disease that prompted his immune system to attack his brain cells, resulting in as many as 60 seizures a day. Special blood and spinal fluid tests developed by Mayo Medical Laboratories confirmed that Widseth had antibodies known to target certain brain cells.

Helicobacter pylori (H pylori) infection is among the most common bacterial infections worldwide with approximately one-half of the world’s population infected. Several invasive and noninvasive testing methods are available to detect H pylori infection.