A method is described for preservation of blood for delayed determinations of ammonia by rapid freezing of the samples in a dry ice and acetone solution followed by storage of the specimens in the frozen state. The method was evaluated by first establishing the reproducibility of the chemical method used for blood ammonia analysis in 714 consecutive samples of dog blood which were analyzed in d...

background: candida albicans is the most common opportunistic fungal species in the oral cavity. various factors associated with c. albicans infection have been evaluated so far. in some studies, the relationship between the blood group antigens and c. albicans has been discussed. the aim of this study was to assess mean c. albicans colony counts in the saliva of healthy subjects and its relati...

IMPORTANCE Our study indicates a prototype blood-based variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) assay has sufficient sensitivity and specificity to justify a large study comparing vCJD prevalence in the United Kingdom with a bovine spongiform encephalopathy-unexposed population. In a clinical diagnostic capacity, the assay's likelihood ratios dramatically change an individual's pretest disease ...

Background: Paratuberculosis and tuberculosis (TB) caused by Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC), respectively are economically important, chronic debilitating diseases affecting the dairy herds and are also potential zoonotic threats. Aims: Differential diagnosis of paratuberculosis and TB i...

BACKGROUND Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) stimulation test is the gold standard to identify central precocious puberty (CPP). This test requires multiple blood samples at different time points to measure gonadotropin levels, and is therefore expensive, time-consuming, and uncomfortable for patients. We aimed to simplify the GnRH stimulation test to require fewer blood samples. METHODS ...

PCR is a highly sensitive method for the detection of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) nucleic acids in blood mononuclear cells and plasma. However, blood separation techniques require extensive laboratory support systems and are difficult when a limited volume of blood is available, which is often the case for infants. The use of blood samples stored on filter paper has many advanta...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of Enzygnost HIV Integral II antigen/antibody combination ELISAs in order to formulate HIV ELISA testing algorithms for the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Tanzania. METHODS This was a laboratory-based evaluation of Enzygnost HIV Integral II Antibody/ Antigen, Murex HIV antigen/antibody and Vironostika HIV Uniform II an...

BACKGROUND Suitable algorithms based on a combination of two or more simple rapid HIV assays have been shown to have a diagnostic accuracy comparable to double enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) or double ELISA with Western Blot strategies. The aims of this study were to evaluate the performance of five simple rapid HIV assays using whole blood samples from HIV-infected patients, pregnan...

The detection of thermonuclease activity in 86 blood culture samples containing gram-positive cocci showed 100% correlation with the subsequent identification of the isolate as Staphylococcus aureus by the coagulase test. No positive thermonuclease results were found with 66 samples containing coagulase-negative staphylococci and 56 samples containing other gram-positive organisms. The thermonu...