In the United States, latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) affects between 10 and 15 million people, of whom 10% may develop active tuberculosis disease. People at increased risk for tuberculosis reactivation include recent immigrants from countries with a high incidence of tuberculosis, children younger than age 5, people who have been infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis within the past 2...

Serial βhCG testing can be a helpful tool in deciding how to manage pregnancy of unknown location. Its use in emergency gynaecology clinics can prevent unnecessary admission and intervention. However, despite NICE Guidelines on when it is safe to opt for conservative management, it was identified that there was a problem with over-testing of βhCG when patients could be discharged with instructi...

There are several commonly used diagnostic tests for allergy, including prick and intradermal skin tests, patch tests, specific IgE blood tests and challenge tests. There are other laboratory tests that might be useful for very specific situations, which is beyond the scope of this article. The aim of this article is to guide the practitioner in the proper use of diagnostic tests for allergy, a...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND /AIM: It has been shown previously that in primary care settings in UK abnormal liver enzymes are not adequately investigated and followed up; hence potentially treatable chronic liver diseases remain undiagnosed. No such published data is available with regard to secondary care settings. The aims of this audit were, to determine if the current practice in our hospital wit...

OBJECTIVE to test whether omeprazole taken for longer than 1 month causes an increase in the rate of small bowel bacterial overgrowth in elderly subjects. SUBJECTS 44 elderly people, 22 taking omeprazole, 22 not taking omeprazole or H2 receptor antagonists. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES rate of positive glucose-hydrogen breath tests; anthropometric measures and blood tests reflecting malabsorption....

Abstract—Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially serious infectious disease that remains a health concern. The Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) is a blood test to find out if an individual is tuberculous positive or negative. This study applies statistical analysis to the clinical data of interferon-gamma levels of seventythree subjects who diagnosed pulmonary TB in an anti-tuberculous treatmen...

BACKGROUND As screening methods for colorectal cancer (CRC) are limited by uptake and adherence, further options are sought. A blood test might increase both, but none has yet been tested in a screening setting. OBJECTIVE We prospectively assessed the accuracy of circulating methylated SEPT9 DNA (mSEPT9) for detecting CRC in a screening population. DESIGN Asymptomatic individuals ≥50 years ...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of Chagas' disease is decreasing in Brazil. Due to cohort effect, the disease might remain a public health problem for some time among older individuals. The present burden of Trypanosoma cruzi infection for the elderly living in areas where the transmission has been interrupted has not been studied. METHODS The prevalence of T. cruzi infection and its association wi...

Article history: Received 16 February 2017 Accepted 16 February 2017 Available online 20 February 2017 physicians in the management of certain situations with high risk of thrombosis such as pregnancy, birth control, or any surgery. The anticoagulant function of antithrombin, protein C, and protein Smay be easily evaluated by functional tests. Unfortunately, biochemical-based blood testing for ...

Compressed sensing of sparse signals is a field that has become pervasive over the last decade, with interesting and strong theoretical guarantees, as well as practical applications across fields. The group testing problem arose several decades earlier in the context of blood testing for syphilis where very few patients had the disease and it was too expensive to test everyone independently. Ma...