Growing up with diabetes
Diabetes presents a special challenge for the young. Here we see how a young Swiss girl has successfully come to terms with her metabolic disorder. A true life story from Bayer HealthCare Diabetes Care (BayNews)
On-the-spot multi-task lab-on-a-chip
A new lab-on-chip system, the ivD-platform, which quickly determines, on site, the contents and parameters of biological samples, such as blood or saliva, with the help of immunoassay or DNA analysis, was presented at Biotechnica this autumn.
Results from C. difficile test in less than 30 minutes
The US firm Inverness Medical has launched a new rapid test as an in vitro diagnostic aid for Clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD).
Olympus presents new clinical chemistry systems
Olympus is presenting the AU480, the newest member of its clinical chemistry analyser family. With a throughput of up to 800 tests per hour, an ISE module and on board capacity of 63 different analytes, the Olympus AU480 is the ideal main analyser for small to medium-size laboratories.
Automated plate streaking
The vital, routine task of plate streaking to isolate a pure culture is inefficient and time-consuming, significantly slowing microbiologists' responses.
Small device counts viruses in minutes
The machine 'qViro' which is the size of a coffee grinder will make virus counting much cheaper than traditional virus counting technology. The revolutionary new invention offers the potential to quickly muster and count the number of viruses in a sample in minutes - it is a portable, desktop instrument, powered from the USB drive of a computer - current competitors are the size of washing…
Autologous cartilage transplantation
Advances in the treatment of cartilage injuries to the knee are very noteworthy. The decisive breakthrough must have been the development of the self-resorbing, bilayer collagen membrane (Chondro-Gide) by Geistlich in Switzerland.
The AU480 clinical chemistry anaylser
Olympus will present the latest member of its clinical chemistry analyser family at Medica.
Urinalysis strip test
Siemens new Clinitek Micro-albumin 9 Urinalysis Strip is now available in Europe. The strips, which can be used on the firm's Clinitek Status analyser, or the Clinitek Advantus analyser, provide nine tests to detect and monitor kidney disease.
Non-invasive prostate cancer test may reduce biopsies
The French firm bioMérieux and ProteoSys, based in Mainz, Germany, have signed a license and development agreement for Annexin 3 to be used to develop a urine-based, confirmatory diagnostic test for prostate cancer.
Hospital staff don't care for influenza vaccination — for themselves
Injections, that's everyday business for the men and women working in healthcare. As long as it is the patients who have to face the needle, it seems. Like in the years before Dr Heinzpeter Moecke, medical director of Asklepios Klinik Nord-Heidberg in Hamburg, Germany, set an example for his staff and had a vaccination.
Drug resistant tuberculosis test within hours
GenoType® MTBDR plus, a new molecular test for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis has recently been approved in Europe. The test, developed by the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) and Hain Lifescience, offers a fast solution to detect MDR-TB and XDR-TB at a reasonable price, a good condition for the application in poorer countries.
Better diabetes care for the UK
Good news for diabetes patients in the UK: According to a report published recently by the Department of Health, diabetes care in the NHS is improving and focusing more on prevention. The result: More patients have been identified, and in more people at risk development of the condition could be prevented.
New guidelines to assess test lab test performance
The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) recently published new guidelines which offer methods to assess test performance when formal proficiency testing programs are not available. Proficiency testing is an important part of quality management in the clinical laboratory and complements internal quality control to help ensure patient test results are valid.
Products redesigned to help patients simplify life with diabetes
Bayer HealthCare Diabetes Care unveiled the new CONTOUR® blood glucose meter with enhanced testing features at the 44th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Rome, Italy.
Tablets for the people?
Last week the English government closed its consultation on the effectiveness of vascular checks for high-risk people aged 40-74. Would this help? Experts from New Zealand and the WHO say "yes". Others argue that public health approaches targeting the whole population are both: cheaper and more effective than tablets.
Vulvar cancer: a hidden disease
Vulvar cancer is the fourth most common cancer of the female genital tract. In 2008, roughly 3,460 cases of vulvar cancer will be diagnosed in the United States and about 870 will die of this cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
Depression and Heart Disease
Two Dutch studies indicate that especially somatic and incident depressions are associated with poor prognosis in cardiac patients, which is very different from the 'typical' psychiatric depression that is usually characterised by cognitive and recurrent depressive symtoms.
New biomarkers in acute cardiac care
Professor C Mueller adressed the issue of new biomarkers in acute cardiac care on the ESC on Monday, 1st September. Read his comment in the following.
The 20th WorldLab IFCC International Congress of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
In the next 10-20 years, great changes will occur in the field of laboratory medicine.
French to the fore in HIV tests
During the XVII International AIDS Conference held in Mexico City this August, keynote speakers from Europe, Latin America and Africa addressed issues including the importance of early detection of HIV infection, the relevance of rapid testing for epidemiology studies, the use of Dried Blood Spots for routine viral-load testing in remote areas, and the experience of South Africa in routine…
Bayer's new Contour meter and Microlet 2 devices
The new Contour blood glucose meter from Bayer HealthCare Diabetes Care promises enhanced testing features that can be personalised to meet diabetics individual treatments. The firm has also redesigned the Microlet 2 lancing system.
Arrays to detect genomic disorder
Roche reports that, using its NimbleGen CGH arrays, researchers* have identified a recurrent reciprocal genomic rearrangement of chromosomal region 17q12 in foetal samples with congenital anomalies that is also associated with paediatric renal disease and epilepsy.
The OptoLabCard
Researchers funded by the European Union have devised OptoLabCard, a system that prepares samples and performs DNA tests on bacteria in a portable, easily used, cost-effective lab-on-a-chip.
