NICE has recommended any of four commercial placental growth factor (PLGF) based blood tests to cost-effectively help both ‘rule in’ and ‘rule out’ suspected pre-eclampsia in late pregnancy.
Between 1980 and 2018 cholesterol concentrations in 200 countries fell sharply in high income nations and rose in low- and middle-income nations.
The September edition of Which? member's magazine featured the article 'Help your GP to help you' providing the reader with an insight into GP appointments. The article features 'Useful websites recommended by GP's'. It includes Lab Tests Online-UK as one of only five recommended and trusted websites.
Overview
What seems like a simple medical test to the average adult can be significantly more challenging to the elderly person whose health is more frail. Here are a few reasons to take extra care when an older person requires a medical test.
Four hours after taking gluten, patients with coeliac disease had an increased blood cytokine concentration
Research has suggested that a single blood cholesterol measurement in early adulthood can help predict the risk of developing coronary heart disease or stroke by the age of 75.
More than 36,500 people in the UK are diagnosed with bowel cancer each year. A five-minute screening procedure could cut their number by a third. On 28 April 2010 the Lancet published online the remarkable results of a 16 year controlled trial led by Imperial College, London and carried out in 14 UK centres. A one-off ‘Flexi-Scope’ examination of the inside of the lower bowel in people between the ages of 55 and 64 picked up pre-cancerous polyps on the bowel wall. These were removed before they could develop into cancer. Screening was carried out on 57,099 participants, with 112,939 unscreened people as a control group. After follow up for an average of eleven years, the incidence of bowel cancer was one-third lower in those screened than in the controls, and mortality was more than 40% lower. The results of this study are so significant that Cancer Research UK is calling on the government to introduce Flexi-Scope screening alongside the current nation-wide bowel cancer screening programme that tests for traces of occult blood in faeces.
Laboratories use a variety of methodologies to test the countless analytes that are of interest to the medical community. Understanding the method used for a test provides a broader context for understanding your test results.
Two new studies of COVID-19 in Europe and in the Philippines show associations of low vitamin D concentrations with pulmonary failure and death.
Cellular pathology, also known as anatomical (or anatomic) pathology is the branch of pathology that involves the study of body organs and