No abstract available.
Glycoproteins* ; Oligodendroglia* ; Rubella virus* ; Rubella*

No abstract available.
Stroke ; Subclavian Artery

No abstract available.
Drug Monitoring ; Sirolimus ; Tacrolimus

BACKGROUND: National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATP III) is the guideline for detection evaluation, and treatment of high blood cholesterol in adults. The risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) is assessed by the presence of CHD risk equivalents and the number of risk factors. LDL-cholesterol is the goal of treatment for hyperlipidemia. Contents: The most common approach for determining LDL-cholesterol level in clinical laboratory is to calculate it based on Friedewald formula. For accurate risk assessment by the calculated LDL-cholesterol, good analytical performances of total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and triglyceride are prerequisite. Even if the analytical performance of these three analytes are within the acceptable criteria, pooled imprecision and bias of the calculated LDL-cholesterol could not meet the criteria for LDL-cholesterol. Even under conditions satisfying the requirements of Friedewald formula, the calculated LDL-cholesterol level was lower than the directly measured level and the difference was dependent on the level of triglyceride, LDL-cholesterol and total cholesterol. When evaluatingpatients with hyperlipidemia, Friedewald calculation may underestimate the risk for coronary heart disease which may lead to inappropriate treatment option. CONCLUSIONS: When evaluating patients with hyperlipidemia, direct measurement of LDL-cholesterol appears to be better than Friedewald calculation.
Adenosine Triphosphate ; Adult ; Bias (Epidemiology) ; Cholesterol ; Coronary Disease ; Humans ; Hyperlipidemias ; Lipoproteins ; Risk Assessment ; Risk Factors

BACKGROUND: AU5822 Automated Clinical Chemistry Analyzer (Beckman Coulter, USA) is a fully automated analytical platform designed for the analysis of general chemistry, specific serologic proteins, therapeutic drug monitoring, and drug abuse testing. AU5822 is a high-throughput system that can process up to 5,800 tests per hour and is easy to maintain. In this study, we evaluated the performance of AU5822 on 31 analytes. METHODS: The precision, linearity, correlation, and sample carryover of 31 analytes were evaluated in accordance with the guidelines of the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). Lyphochek (Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., USA), Liquichek (Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.), Validate (Marine Standard Company, USA), and patient sera were used in the analysis. For the correlation study, we carried out a comparison of AU5822 and Cobas 8000 Modular Analyzer (Roche, Switzerland). RESULTS: The coefficients of variation of all samples showed values below 5%. The coefficient of determination (R2) was > or =0.99, with linearity in the clinically important range. The comparison with Cobas 8000 showed a good correlation, with a correlation coefficient of >0.975 for all of the analytes, excluding sodium that had a correlation coefficient of 0.9641. The test values of percentage sample carryover were less than 0.89%. CONCLUSIONS: AU5822 performed well in terms of precision, linearity, comparison, and sample carryover in the established assays for 31 analytes. Therefore, Beckman Coulter AU5822 Automated Clinical Chemistry Analyzer is expected to be useful for routine chemistry analysis in hospitals with large test volumes.
Chemistry ; Chemistry, Clinical* ; Drug Monitoring ; Humans ; Sodium ; Statistics as Topic ; Substance Abuse Detection

BACKGROUND: We aimed to assess the performance of the five creatinine-based equations commonly used for estimates of the glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), namely, the creatinine-based Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPIcr), Asian CKD-EPI, revised Lund–Malmö (revised LM), full age spectrum (FAS), and Korean FAS equations, in the Korean population. METHODS: A total of 1,312 patients, aged 20 yr and above who underwent ⁵¹Cr-EDTA GFR measurements (mGFR), were enrolled. The bias (eGFR–mGFR) and precision (root mean square error [RMSE]) were calculated. The accuracy (P30) of four eGFR equations was compared to that of the CKD-EPIcr equation. P30 was defined as the percentage of patients whose eGFR was within±30% of the mGFR. RESULTS: The mean bias (mL·min⁻¹·1.73 m⁻²) of the five eGFR equation was as follows: CKD-EPIcr, -0.6; Asian CKD-EPI, 2.7; revised LM, -6.5; FAS, -2.5; and Korean FAS, -0.2. The bias of the Asian CKD-EPI, revised LM, and FAS equations showed a significant difference from zero (P<0.001). The RMSE values were as follows: CKD-EPIcr, 15.6; Asian CKD-EPI, 15.6; revised LM, 17.9; FAS, 16.3; and Korean FAS, 15.8. There were no significant differences in the P30 except for the Asian CKD-EPI equation: CKD-EPIcr, 76.6%; Asian CKD-EPI, 74.7%; revised LM, 75.8%; FAS, 76.0%; and Korean FAS, 75.8%. CONCLUSIONS: The CKD-EPIcr and Korean FAS equations showed equivalent analytical and clinical performances in the Korean adult population.
Adult* ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Bias (Epidemiology) ; Cooperative Behavior ; Creatinine ; Epidemiology ; Glomerular Filtration Rate* ; Humans ; Renal Insufficiency, Chronic

CYP2D6 is primarily responsible for the metabolism of clomiphene citrate (CC). The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between CYP2D6 genotypes, concentrations of CC and its major metabolites and drug response in infertility patients. We studied 42 patients with ovulatory dysfunction treated with only CC. Patients received a dose of 100 mg/day CC on days 3-7 of the menstrual cycle. CYP2D6 genotyping and measurement of CC and the major metabolite concentrations were performed. Patients were categorized into CC responders or non-responders according to one cycle response for the ovulation. Thirty-two patients were CC responders and 10 patients were non-responders with 1 cycle treatment. The CC concentrations were highly variable within the same group, but non-responders revealed significantly lower (E)-clomiphene concentration and a trend of decreased concentrations of active metabolites compared to the responders. Nine patients with intermediate metabolizer phenotype were all responders. We confirmed that the CC and the metabolite concentrations were different according to the ovulation status. However, our results do not provide evidence for the contribution of CYP2D6 polymorphism to either drug response or CC concentrations.
Adult ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; Clomiphene/blood/metabolism/*therapeutic use ; Cytochrome P-450 CYP2D6/*genetics ; Estrogen Antagonists/analysis/metabolism/therapeutic use ; Female ; Genotype ; Humans ; Infertility/*drug therapy/genetics ; Ovulation Induction ; Phenotype ; *Polymorphism, Genetic ; Republic of Korea ; Tandem Mass Spectrometry

BACKGROUND: The Samsung LABGEO PT10 (Samsung Electronics, Korea) has been developed as a point-of-care testing (POCT) chemistry analyzer. We evaluated the performance of the Samsung LABGEO PT Biochemistry Test 15 (Samsung Electronics) and the HbA1c Test (Samsung Electronics), which are dedicated cartridges for the LABGEO PT10. METHODS: Based on the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines, the precision, linearity, and methodology were evaluated for seven chemistry analytes (cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, amylase, and hemoglobin A1c). All the analytes, except for hemoglobin A1c, were obtained from three different types of samples: whole blood, plasma, and serum, to evaluate matrix effects. RESULTS: In the precision analysis, both within-run and total-run coefficients of variation were less than 10% for the seven analytes. Dose curves for the seven analytes were linear in the clinically relevant concentration ranges. The methodology study yielded correlation coefficients > or =0.98 for the seven comparisons of the LABGEO PT10 cartridge tests with other methods. Except for HDL cholesterol, the percentage differences between test results obtained from whole blood, plasma, and serum, were within +/-10%. The concentrations of HDL cholesterol measured in whole blood samples were 0.9 mg/dL and 5.6 mg/dL higher than those measured in plasma and serum specimens, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The LABGEO PT10 showed suitable analytical performance with respect to precision and linearity and demonstrated a good correlation with automated chemistry analyzer. With the additional benefits of a short turnaround time and ease of use, the LABGEO PT10 is an acceptable POCT chemistry analyzer.
Amylases ; Biochemistry ; Blood Urea Nitrogen ; Chemistry* ; Cholesterol, HDL ; Creatinine ; Methods ; Plasma ; Point-of-Care Systems ; Triglycerides

Invasive aspergillosis is one of rare causes of mortality for the immune-compromised patients. We present a case of invasive aspergillosis complicated by the occlusion of the internal carotid artery and cerebral infarction in a patient with diabetes mellitus. Although initial biopsy did not find the pathogen, the repeated attempts of sampling showed aspergillosis. Combination of surgical removal of necrotic tissue and voriconazole medication improved symptoms and reduced the burden of infection.
Aspergillosis* ; Biopsy ; Carotid Arteries ; Carotid Artery, Internal* ; Cerebral Infarction* ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Humans ; Mortality ; Voriconazole