American journal of clinical pathology
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Am. J. Clin. Pathol. · Oct 1981
Performances of urine pregnancy tests on College of American Pathologists Survey specimens.
The participant performances on the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Urine Survey specimens distributed during 1979 and 1980 for pregnancy testing are reviewed. Almost all the reagent methods used by the participants performed well on the negative specimens. Prominent differences in results on the positive specimens were found. Awareness by laboratorians of the reagent sensitivity, limitations, and capabilities of commercial tests for determining human chorionic gonadotropin in urine is recommended.
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Sera from three patients initially evaluated by cellulose acetate electrophoresis demonstrated apparent application "artifacts." On agarose gel electrophoresis, each had a definite paraprotein "spike." The immunoglobulin classes of the paraproteins were determined by immunoelectrophoresis, with and without reduction by dithiothreitol. The immunoglobulin class was confirmed by immunofixation electrophoresis on agarose gel. All three abnormal immunoglobulins were IgM-kappa-type paraproteins. Agarose electrophoresis with immunofixation was superior in the identification of these paraproteins compared with the standard method of cellulose acetate electrophoresis coupled with immunoelectrophoresis.
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Am. J. Clin. Pathol. · Apr 1981
An evaluation of burn wound quantitative microbiology. I. Quantitative eschar cultures.
The reliability of quantitative data from burn wound biopsy cultures was investigated. This was done by comparing the recovery of microorganisms from a series of burn wound eschar biopsy specimens that were each divided into two approximately equal portions and cultured in parallel. ⋯ For recovery levels corresponding to quantitative breakpoints that have been proposed to be predictive of burn wound sepsis, only 38% of paired quantitative results agreed within the same log10 unit, and 44% differed by +/- 2 log10 units or more. These findings indicate that quantitative results derived from burn wound biopsy cultures are unreliable and may be significantly misleading when used for decision-making relative to patient care.
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The incidence of fungal infections of burn wounds is increasing because of the dramatic improvement in antibacterial chemotherapy and burn wound care. Species of Fusarium, common soil fungi and plant pathogens, are rarely isolated from burn wounds, and invasive disease due to these organisms is also rare. Therefore, a case of burn wound infection with dissemination due to F. oxysporum is reported; three other cases of burn wound colonization by Fusarium sp. are also reported. The literature on fungal infections of burn wounds is reviewed, and the importance of combined histologic and mycologic studies in the evaluation of such wounds is discussed.