Insights: Stories

In a quiet suburb outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota, an ordinary Saturday took a sudden and alarming turn for Scott Olson when he began experiencing symptoms of ventricular tachycardia. Central to the care and treatment he'd receive at Mayo Clinic was the precise testing that was done by Mayo's Cardiac Pathology Lab, which uncovered the true cause of his erratic heart rhythm. That discovery not only clarified Scott's diagnosis, but also highlighted the critical role that advanced diagnostics plays in guiding successful patient outcomes.

As a clinical specialty representative, Ona Saras’ decade-long dedication to patient care and advocacy for cutting-edge testing at Mayo Clinic Laboratories has transformed lives across Northern California and Reno, Nevada. Through personal experiences and professional insights, Ona shares her commitment to prioritizing patient needs and empowering providers with timely and accurate diagnoses.

Central nervous system infections, such as meningitis and encephalitis, can be devastating for affected patients. While specific treatments are available for some of these infections, it first requires identifying the precise cause of infection. To meet that need, Mayo Clinic Laboratories has developed a metagenomics assay that can identify more than 1,000 pathogenic organisms in cerebrospinal fluid. The innovative assay, which uses an approach known as shotgun metagenomic sequencing, is one of the only such tests currently available.

This week's research roundup feature: Monoclonal immunoglobulin (MIg) crystalline nephropathies are rare lesions resulting from precipitation of MIgs in the kidney as crystalline inclusions. They can be categorized into lesions with predominant intracellular crystals (light chain [LC] proximal tubulopathy, LC crystal-storing histiocytosis, LC crystalline podocytopathy] and lesions with predominant extracellular crystals (crystalglobulin-induced nephropathy, crystalline variant of LC cast nephropathy).

This week's research roundup feature: Despite advances in understanding the genetic abnormalities in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) and the development of JAK2 inhibitors, there is an urgent need to devise new treatment strategies, particularly for triple negative myelofibrosis (MF) patients who lack mutations in the JAK2 kinase pathway and have very poor clinical outcomes.

Situated in a sprawling geographic region in mid-Missouri, Boone Health expanded its reach to improve access to high-quality holistic care throughout the area, improving the health of community members and increasing net revenue along the way.

This week's research roundup feature: To standardize international normalized ratio (INR) measurements and improve data integrity by enabling electronic result transmission for warfarin monitoring, two point-of-care (POC) devices were evaluated against an internal plasma INR reference method.

What started as a persistent headache for Spencer Lodin soon devolved into slowed speech, seizures, and hallucinations, symptoms which stumped ER doctors into thinking he had meningitis or was suffering from psychosis. Finally, specialized testing at Mayo Clinic identified Spencer's condition as GFAP-IgG associated autoimmune encephalitis, which allowed for targeted treatment and a full recovery.

This week's research roundup feature: Plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease in the continuum of dementia with Lewy bodies.

This week's research roundup feature: Only 20 percent of renal and bladder cancer patients will show a significant response to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy, and no test currently available accurately predicts ICI response. We developed an "immunotumoroid" cell model system that recapitulates the tumor, its microenvironment, and necessary immune system components in patient-derived spheroids to enable ex vivo assessment of tumor response to ICI therapy.

With nearly 30 years at Mayo Clinic, Sherri Hawkins has served in a wide range of laboratory-related roles. Beginning as a laboratorian on the bench and now serving as Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) manager, Sherri has been able to unite her two career passions — laboratory testing and business.

This week's research roundup feature: R0 resection and radiation therapy have been associated with improved overall survival (OS) in patients with thymic carcinoma (TC). Here, we analyzed which subgroups of patients derive the greatest benefit from postoperative radiation therapy (PORT).