T he Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI, formerly NCCLS) has been publishing standards and guidelines for clinicallaboratory procedures since the early 1970s. At least six documents detail proper specimen-collection and -processing procedures; most have been recently revised. The revisions reflect significant changes that all specimen-collection personnel, regardless of their pro...

Background: The integrity of collection protocols in biobanking is essential for a high-quality sample preparation process. However, there is not currently a well-defined universal method for integrating collection protocols in the biobanking information system (BIMS). Therefore, an electronic schema of the collection protocol that is based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) is required to mai...

Exposure to at least 100 different chemicals may be estimated on an individual basis from their concentrations in blood or urine. The present document reviews sources of error in the collection, processing and storage of specimens for this biological monitoring. Physiological factors cause variation in the concentration of chemicals in the body fluids. Distribution of water depends on posture. ...

Preterm infants undergoing heel blood sampling were randomly allocated to specimen collection by heel puncture (Autolet II Clinisafe) or incision (Tenderfoot 'preemie'). A total of 187 procedures was observed in 47 infants. No significant difference was found in the infants' behavioural response, increase in heart rate, or in the frequency of specimen haemolysis. Collection times for small to m...

In the 70ies of the last century, ther term "preanalytical phase" was introduced in the literature. This term describes all actions and aspects of the "brain to brain circle" of the medical laboratory diagnostic procedure happening before the analytical phase. The author describes his personal experiences in the early seventies and the following history of increasing awareness of this phase as ...

BACKGROUND Genome-wide association scans for genetic loci underlying both Mendelian and complex traits are increasingly common in canine genetics research. However, the demand for high-quality DNA for use on such platforms creates challenges for traditional blood sample ascertainment. Though the use of saliva as a means of collecting DNA is common in human studies, alternate means of DNA collec...

Damage to specimen collections occurs in practically every herbarium across the world. Hence, some precautions must be taken, such as investigating factors that cause damage their and evaluating collection handling usage policy. However, manual investigation of causes requires a lot effort time. Only few studies have attempted investigate damage. So far, non-gaussian approach detecting specimen...

Psittacine beak and feather disease (PBFD) is a common disease of the psittacine species and is caused by the psittacine beak and feather disease virus (PBFDV). In this study the occurrence of the disease in ring-neck parakeets and budgerigars in South Africa suffering from feathering problems, using polymerase chain reaction as a diagnostic test was investigated. The genetic variation between ...