Clinical biochemistry
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Clinical biochemistry · Jun 2010
Diagnostic accuracy of sTREM-1 to identify infection in critically ill patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome.
To assess the accuracy of plasma levels of soluble Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid cells (sTREM)-1 to diagnose infection in critical patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). ⋯ In critical patients admitted with SIRS, sTREM-1 has poor discriminative power to identify patients with infection, and sTREM-1 levels do not add diagnostic information to that provided by other routinely available clinical tests.
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Clinical biochemistry · Jun 2010
Prognostic value of established and novel biomarkers in patients with shortness of breath attending an emergency department.
Acute dyspnea is a common cause for emergency department visits. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of established and novel biomarkers in patients with acute dyspnea. ⋯ Our evaluation of biomarkers in patients with acute dyspnea suggests that MR-proANP, sST2, and CgA are strong, independent and complementary outcome predictors. MR-proANP is considered a specific marker of cardiac stretch, sST2 might reflect both inflammation and cardiac stretch, and CgA obviously indicates neuroendocrine activation in various diseases.
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Clinical biochemistry · Apr 2010
Empirical models for dosage optimization of four beta-lactams in critically ill septic patients based on therapeutic drug monitoring of amikacin.
The study aims to develop empirical models able to predict the pharmacokinetics (PK) of four beta-lactams using the amikacin (AMK) therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), in order to optimize their dosage regimens. ⋯ PK of the four beta-lactams could be easily and rapidly predicted in critically ill septic patients using the AMK TDM. These predictions could improve the beta-lactam dosages in clinical practice.
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Clinical biochemistry · Nov 2009
Comparative StudyIron, zinc and aluminium ferritin content of hemodialysis hyperferritinemic patients: comparison with other hyperferritinemic clinical conditions and normoferritinemic blood donors.
The present study describes the specific content of ferritin iron, zinc and aluminium in four different groups: 1) hemodialysis hyperferritinemic patients; 2) septic patients; 3) iron overloaded patients with hematologic diseases; and 4) blood donors. In all four groups high levels of aluminium and zinc were found in addition to those of iron. However, the sum of the ferritin ions of the control group is significantly higher than that of the other three groups. ⋯ Fe and Zn), a lower Al/Fe ratio is found both in septic and hematological patients. The results of the present paper might help to explain the high percentage of hyperferritinemia found in hemodialysis patients also in presence of low transferrin saturation and in absence of inflammatory markers. Moreover, the high content of ions other than iron in the ferritin core leads us to believe that ferritin is not only an iron storage protein but rather a regulator of redox active ions.