A few years ago, Dr Peder Bo Nielsen MD FRCPath, Consultant medical microbiologist at Northwick Park Hospital, London, UK, launched a research programme on airborne transmission of nosocomial infections. Until then, so called air-biology held no high priority in infection prevention and control. The prevailing perception was that colonisation and contamination mainly happens due to direct contact…
New biomarkers play a key role in individualised tumour therapy. They are important indicators for pathological processes in the body and for the use of adequate cancer drugs. In our European Hospital interview Professor Celso A Reis, from the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of the University of Porto (IPATIMUP*) in Portugal, discussed the current state of clinical use of…
The daily management of diabetes mellitus is a complex interaction between blood glucose measuring, lifestyle aspects and drug therapy. Large epidemiological trials such as UKPDS (United Kingdom Diabetes Prospective Study) have shown that an optimal blood glucose adjustment has beneficial long-term effects on type-2 diabetics’ risk of micro- and macrovascular secondary complications.
An adequate blood glucose level (4–7 mmol/l) is important not only for a diabetic’s daily well-being but also to prevent diabetes-related illnesses. HbA1c is the central marker to evaluate the success of diabetes management. But HbA1c measurement has a crucial limitation: current blood glucose fluctuations are not taken into consideration. However, the recognition of steep post-prandial blood…
Diabetes mellitus is a lingering disease – for a long time it causes subjectively few complaints or no complaints at all. Despite this, it is life-threatening – especially if undiagnosed, or diagnosed too late. However, although diabetes is the most widespread disease it is often only discovered by accident in a hospital, where many hospital doctors feel that diabetology is the responsibility…
At the end of June a shocking new estimate was released in the UK regarding the number of people unwittingly going about their lives without knowing they are type 2 diabetics – there are just over a million of them. How will the country cope with this discovery and its present diabetic population?
In 2009, the continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) market earned manufacturers $23.5; this is forecast to reach $52.0 million in 2016, according to a new analysis from Frost and Sullivan (F&S). For the study the markets covered by region are Benelux, Germany, France, Italy, Scandinavia, Spain and the United Kingdom.
There are about 285 million diabetics worldwide, representing 6.4 % of the adult population (20-79 age group). According to International Diabetes Federation (IDF) figures, the number is expected to reach some 438 million by 2030. While in the past, Type 2 diabetes was often thought of as a disease of the elderly, there is now a rising trend of Type 2 diabetes in younger age groups.
The MRSA problem has been ignored almost stoically in many European countries for the past 20 years. Thus the number of resistant Staphylococci cases exploded from 1% in 1990 around 25% in 2010. However, the recognition that an infection can result in additional hospital costs of up to €10,000 has led to a change in thinking. The Netherlands, for example, declared war on MRSA with ‘search and…
It’s travel time, bringing all the possibilities of fun – as well as disease risk. The dengue virus, eg, is endemic in 124 countries. It is carried and transmitted by mosquitoes. Typically, what follows is a non-fatal febrile illness characterised by fever, muscle pain, headache, and nausea and vomiting lasting 5-7 days.
A small team of researchers at Barts and London School of Medicine and Dentistry, in London, has developed a rapid, cheap and effective kit to test for the presence of Clostridium difficile. And, they report that the new kit costs as little as 50 pence to £1 per test and can deliver results in under an hour, compared to commercial kits that cost up to £25 and in some cases take significantly…
Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics announced the release of PRISCA version 5.0 Prenatal Risk Calculation Software available in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. The upgraded version offers the industry’s only Shared Database that allows laboratories to compare data and integrate patient demographic factors into the analysis. Both of these features help increase the accuracy…
The effectiveness of PSA (prostate-specific antigen) screening on reducing prostate cancer mortality was given a boost in 2009 when the conclusive findings from the 10-year European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) -- the world’s largest prostate cancer screening study – were published.
The Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has become the first site, worldwide, to evaluate the full serum work area (SWA) capabilities of the cobas 8000 high throughput clinical analyser.
The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) is holding its 2010 Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo July 25 - 29 at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, CA. This year’s AACC Expo promises to be the largest, most comprehensive yet, featuring nearly 700 vendors showing the latest technology and products for every aspect in clinical laboratory testing.
An examination of the world-wide use of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), which involves transplantation of blood stem cells derived from the bone marrow or blood, finds that there are significant differences in transplant rates between countries and continental regions by indication and donor type, and that HSCT is most frequently used in countries with higher gross national…
35 seconds. That's how fast caregivers can get blood gas results on the ABL90 FLEX, Radiometer's next-generation, cassette-based analyzer. The unmatched short time to results enables caregivers to spend less time on testing and more on patient care. The ABL90 FLEX measures 17 parameters, including blood gas, electrolytes, metabolites and CO-oximetry from just 65μL of whole blood.
Cancer Research UK has joined forces with the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and Diabetes UK to launch a new campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of carrying excess weight around the waist. A survey to launch the 'Active Fat' campaign found that 71 per cent of respondents admitted to carrying excess weight around their middle.
Though heart disease is a major cause of disability and death, very little is understood about its genetic underpinnings. Recently, an international team of investigators at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) and other organizations shed new light on the subject. Studying Drosophila…
iSOFT has completed the implementation of Lorenzo 3.5 across all surgical departments at St Jansdal Hospital, Netherlands, with the latest release providing tools for patient management, results reporting, requesting and advanced clinical data capture, for 96 nurses and ten surgeons currently.
Now firmly established within the social media world - with over 10,000 Facebook fans, over 2,500 followers on Twitter, and many more supporters across other sites - we need our online supporters to help with our 'Get Serious' campaign.
A study published this week in Lancet suggests that low A1C levels may be just as dangerous as high A1C levels in diabetes patients with respect to mortality and cardiovascular outcomes. Upon review of the study, The Endocrine Society released a statement recommending against any wholesale change in glycemic goals and strongly encourages patients to discuss these issues with their diabetes-care…
Whereas, in the past, the diagnoses of infectious diseases focused on antibody detection, more recently laboratories aim to identify the agent itself, using the invaluable PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test. We asked Prof Beatus Ofenloch-Hähnle, head of Reagent and System Development Immunology, at Roche Professional Diagnostics, and Benjamin Lilienfeld, Global Product Manager for Infectious…
The new Olympus DP21 digital microscopy camera for high-definition (HD) image capture is suitable for use in life science and materials microscopy. The 2.11 megapixel stand-alone camera allows easy observation, focusing and framing, while enabling the smooth display of real-time 1600x1200 (UXGA) images, the manufacturer reports.
The UK’s Babraham Institute, which conducts biomedical research, has established a ‘high throughput’ epigenomics sequencing facility to improve understanding of healthier ageing.