American Association for Clinical Chemistry
Improving healthcare through laboratory medicine
NACB Blog
Where Is the Hemoglobin S?

4/2/2013 2:52 PM | Comments (0) Recommend (136)

By William E. Winter, MD; Lindsay Bazydlo, PhD, and Neil S. Harris, MD
PermalinkRecommendFacebookEmailComments
​Case: The patient was an African American woman between the ages of 30 and 40 years. She previously had a gastric bypass and lost weight from 400 lbs to less than 200 lbs. Since that time the patient suffered from multiple episodes of ill defined abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea attributed, i...(Read More)
Posted at 4/2/2013 2:52 PM | Tags: Case Study | TDM/Toxicology
Babysoaps and False Positive THC Results in the Nursery

7/10/2012 9:48 AM | Comments (2) Recommend (816)

By Steve Cotten, PhD and Catherine Hammett-Stabler, PhD
PermalinkRecommendFacebookEmailComments
Our lab recently used some nifty sleuthing to discover that soaps used in our newborn nursery were generating false positive THC urine drug screening results.  Newborn drug testing has far-reaching impacts not only in healthcare, but also in the legal domain.  Prenatal drug exposure is considered c...(Read More)
Posted at 7/10/2012 9:48 AM | Tags: Special Populations | TDM/Toxicology
Osmolal Gap: The Mother of All Surrogates?

3/20/2012 9:21 AM | Comments (0) Recommend (588)

By Roger L. Bertholf, PhD, and William E. Winter, MD
PermalinkRecommendFacebookEmailComments
​Surrogate can be a verb (to appoint a representative), an adjective (providing or receiving nurture or parental care though not related by blood or legal ties), or a noun (a stand-in or substitute). Several laboratory tests function as surrogates for analytes that are difficult or impractical to m...(Read More)
Posted at 3/20/2012 9:21 AM | Tags: TDM/Toxicology
What Specimens Other Than Urine Are Used for the Detection of Drug Abuse?

2/21/2012 8:44 AM | Comments (1) Recommend (682)

By Uttam Garg, PhD, DABCC, DABFT, FACB
PermalinkRecommendFacebookEmailComments
​Illicit drug abuse remains a significant problem.  Drug testing in biological specimens is the most common way to prove and deter drug abuse.  Urine is the most widely used matrix for drugs of abuse testing.   The advantages of urine specimen include that it is well known specimen, drugs concentra...(Read More)
Posted at 2/21/2012 8:44 AM | Tags: TDM/Toxicology
1 - 4 Next