Urinary albumin is a biomarker for kidney damage and is widely applied in clinical practice.With more evidence on urinary albumin, it is also recognized as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.This paper focuses on thecurrent status of pre-analytical, mid-analytical and post-analytical process and discusses the progress in standardization of measurement for urinary albumin and the issues which call for the attention of clinical laboratorian.

Incidence of acute kidney injury ( AKI ) is increasing rapidly to epidemic proportions . Development of AKI is associated with increased morbidity , mortality and hospitalization costs .Currently available diagnostic tools are mostly insensitive for early diagnosis of AKI .Finding an early, reliable, easily reproducible , economical and accurate biomarker for AKI is a top research priority .In recent years , many serum and urinary proteins have been investigated as possible early markers of AKI .

The mortality of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is increasing because of renal failure,cardiovascular diseases and other reasons which has been a global public health problem.Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is the important biomarker of kidney function evaluation and early diagnosis of CKD,whose direct measurement methods cannot be widely applied in clinical laboratory.With the development of studies on estimating glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) equations,eGFR has been a biomarker of kidney function evaluation in clinical diagnosis.The current paper reviews the research progress and clinical application of different eGFR equations.

Laboratory developed tests ( LDT) are usually referred to the diagnostic methods for the medical laboratory , which can only be used in the medical laboratory and can not be sold to other medical laboratories , hospitals and individuals .The paper shows the draft guideline of LDT issued by Food and Drug Administration ( FDA) and the suggestions of clinical laboratory experts and relevant academic groups for different FDA monitoring models.

Objective To investigate the advantages of three-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction of nasal fractures with spiral computed tomography (CT) in comparison with roentgenography in medico-legal expertise. Methods CT scanning was performed in 32 cases with complex nasal fractures by Somatom Balance on 2mm/2mm scan. The images were reconstructed with maximum intensity projection (MIP), multi-plannar reconstruction (MPR), shaded surface display (SSD), and volume rendering (VR) mode and compared with roentgenographic images. Result Nasal fractures evaluated by roentgenography were detected to be false-positive in 3 cases and misdiagnosed fracture type in 6 cases as re-evaluated by 3-D reconstruction. Conclusion 3-D reconstruction images are of advantages over roentgenographic images in evaluation of broken bone fragments, displacement, fracture type for clinical diagnosis and medicolegal expertise.

Objective A survey was conducted to learn the status of award winning for science and technology achievement among the medical institutions ranked level 2 and above in Sichuan province,to learn the research capacity in such medical institutions,and to provide the basis for research management and health decision.Methods Questionnaire survey was carried out among 555 hospitals ranked level 2 and above in Sichuan province,information on award winning for science and technology achievement during 2010 -2012 was collected and analyzed.Results Only 33％ of those medical institutions were awarded for their achievement in research with total number of 882 awards in three years:300,266,and 316 awards were obtained in 2010,2011 and 2012,respectively.Conclusions In the medical organization of Sichuan province,the number of awards of scientific and technological achievements showed no significant increase with an volatility state,and the overall level of award need to be improved.Awarded Research areas were mainly on clinical research-based,especially on surgery department.Most award winning hospitals are level 3,and the general hospitals win more award than specialized hospitals;furthermore,hospitals located in different regions are quite different in terms of award winning.

Objective To explore the optimal power of experimental pancreatic endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS)-guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA) therapy.Methods Six healthy live minipigs were randomly divided into two groups according to random number table,which received RFA under EUS or in laparotomy.Each pig in each group was randomly allocated to received RFA at different power (5 W,10 W,15 W).The impedance was monitored and the time for each therapy was recorded.The width diameter of coagulation necrosis from RFA was measured by EUS and gross pathology.Results RFA was completed in all pigs smoothly with stable life signs and without complications.Gross and micro pathologic observation confirmed formation of coagulation necrosis lesions.The width diameter of lesions from EUS-RFA was similar to that from surgery RFA,both having a maximum value at 10 W power (11 nun VS 10 mm).Conclusion The optimal power of experimental pancreatic EUS-RFA in pig is 10W,which should be further explored for the clinical purpose.

Objective To evaluate the performance of sST 2 ELISA kit and investigate the clinical application of sST2.Methods This verification study validated the precision , linearity of sST2 ELISA kit according to the CLSI EP-15A, EP-6A protocols.300 healthy adults(aged from 20 to 85, 124 male and 176 female) from 5 different districts of Shanghai were used to establish serum sST 2 reference interval .The correlations between sST2, NT-ProBNP, LVEF and NYHA class were analyzed in 117 patients diagnosed with heart failure who were grouped according to the New York heart association ( NYHA).Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to compare the ablity of sST2, NT-ProBNP, LVEF in distinguishing heart failure patients .Results The within-lot and between-lot variation of three level samples were below 4% and 10% respectively.There was a good linear correlation ( Y=0.995X+0.005, R2 =0.999) between theoretical value and actual detection result in the range of 0 to 200 μg/ml.The reference interval of sST2 was 10.2 to 41.0μg/ml for males and 8.9 to 28.1μg/ml for females.sST2 was positively correlated with NT-ProBNP and NYHA class but did not correlate with LVEF in heart failure patients . Patients with NYHA class>II (Median:28.3,IQR:19.5-39.2)had higher serum sST2 level than patients with NYHA class≤II (Median:45.1,IQR:34.1 -85.6), P<0.05.The AUC of sST2 in distinguishing heart failure patients from normal people was 0.815(sensitivity :51.2%,specificity:92.7%).The AUC of sST2 ,sST2+NT-ProBNP and sST2+NT-ProBNP+LVEF in distinguishing patients between NYHA class≤II and>II were 0.743, 0.810, 0.831 respectively and the sensitivity of sST 2 +NT-ProBNP+LVEF was 94.7%.Conclusions Experimental results show that this sST 2 ELISA kit has a good performance in the precision, linearity.sST2 correlates with NT-ProBNP and NYHA class but do not correlates with LVEF . Serum sST2 level is not influenced by age , BMI, renal function.sST2 could be a good supplement of NT-ProBNP and LVEF in distinguishing patients between NYHA class≤II and>II.

Urinary albumin used as an important indicator in diagnosis of renal disease , but there are still many problems in the clinical application .The urine specimen type , threshold value , reference measurement procedures and some more aspect were summarized in this article .

Objective To evaluate the performance of serum sialic acid detection kit using enzymic method and investigate the clinical diagnosis value of sialic acid.Methods one hundred and fifty healthy adults were enrolled in this case control study to establish serum SA reference interval.The analytical performance (accuracy,precision,linearity) of serum sialic acid detection kit using enzymic method was assessed.Two hundred and forty patients were classified into different malignant tumor groups according to their pathological types.Serum SA level of each tumor group was compared with that of normal control group.In tumor groups with statistical difference,benign disease groups were further collected.Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and area under curve (AUC) were used to evaluate the diagnostic value of SA compared with other tumor markers.t test,one-way ANOVA,Mann-Whitney U test were used as statistical methods.Results The reference interval of SA was 479 to 715 mg/L.The detection result of 2 level controls was 584 and 1 482 mg/L respectively,which were both within the acceptable limits.The within-lot and between-lot variations of three level samples were both below 5％.There was a good linear correlation (Y =0.995X-0.177,R2 =0.999) between theoretical value and actual detection result in range of 0-1 052 mg/L.The serum level of SA was (757 ± 177),(514 ± 86) and (597 ± 60) mg/L in gastric cancer group,benign disease control group and normal control group respectively,which had statistically significant difference(F =55.2,P ＜ 0.01).The serum level of SA was(659 ± 127) and (545 ± 66) mg/L in colorectal cancer group and benign disease control group respectively,which had statistically significant difference(F =42.8,P ＜ 0.01).The serum level of SA was (738 ± 157) and (672 ± 161) mg/L in colorectal cancer group and benign disease control group respectively,which did not have statistically significant difference(F =26.3,P ＞ 0.05).The AUC of SA was 0.804,0.724,0.755 in gastric cancer group,colorectal cancer group and lung cancer group respectively,which was higher than that of CEA and CA72-4.In gastric cancer group,the sensitivity of SA was higher than that of CEA (59.5％,24.3％).The AUC of SA was 0.791,0.687,0.790 in gastric cancer,colorectal cancer and lung cancer patients with normal CEA serum level respectively.Conclusions Experimental results show that serum sialic acid detection kit using enzymic method has good performance in the precision and linearity.Sialic acid has some value in the diagnosis of gastric cancer and colorectal cancer and could be a good supplement of CEA in screening of cancer.