Phlebotomy News and Research

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Phlebotomy is the drawing of blood, a phlebotomist is someone with special training to do. However, in many countries other healthcare professionals are also capable of drawing blood (e.g. doctors, nurses, laboratory and emergency medical technicians).

Novel treatment for polycythemia vera shows promise in clinical trial

A novel treatment for polycythemia vera, a potentially fatal blood cancer, demonstrated the ability to control overproduction of red blood cells, the hallmark of this malignancy and many of its debilitating symptoms in a multi-center clinical trial led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

21 Feb 2024

Hormone therapy for transmasculine individuals may be safer than previously thought

A common concern about gender-affirming hormone therapy for transmasculine people is the risk of red blood cell volume changes and erythrocytosis, a high concentration of red blood cells, with the use of prescribed testosterone.

27 Nov 2023

Overweight people have a different vitamin D metabolism

A new study in JAMA Network Open aimed to determine whether BMI is capable of modifying vitamin D metabolism as well as response to supplementation.

18 Jan 2023

PerkinElmer’s Oxford Immunotec receives U.S. FDA approval for T-cell select to automate clinically superior tuberculosis detection

PerkinElmer’s (NYSE: PKI) Oxford Immunotec today announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of the T-Cell Select™ reagent kit for the automation of its T-SPOT®.TB test workflow for in vitro diagnostic (IVD) use by certified laboratories.

From Oxford Immunotec 6 Oct 2022

Study reports robust immunity to SARS-CoV-2 including Omicron BA.1 for all three primary vaccines

In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* pre-print server, researchers in the United Kingdom investigated the effect of two Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccine doses or Oxford/AstraZeneca AZ1222 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination and a subsequent BNT162b2 booster dose in a cohort of healthcare workers (HCWs) over six to nine months.

10 Jun 2022

COMBINEDBrain Biorepository: A comprehensive approach to speed research for rare diseases

COMBINEDBrain puts advocacy groups in the driver's seat in the race to cure rare neurodevelopmental diseases. Patient advocacy foundations representing more than thirty rare genetic neurodevelopmental disorders join forces as part of COMBINEDBrain to make it faster to do research on their disorders.

30 Mar 2022

40 new one-stop-shops for checks, scans and tests set to open across England

Millions of patients will benefit from earlier diagnostic tests closer to home thanks to 40 new Community Diagnostic Centres set to open across England in a range of settings from local shopping centers to football stadiums.

30 Sep 2021

Study reveals cellular basis of antigen-specific response to Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine

Researchers in the United States have provided important insights into the antigen-specific cellular response and evolving humoral (antibody) response to messenger RNA- (mRNA) based vaccination against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the agent that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

29 Jul 2021

An assay capable of detecting SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in breast milk and other samples

In a recent study by US researchers (currently available on the medRxiv* preprint server), a specific immunoassay based on the spike glycoprotein’s receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is not only well suited for the detection of antibody response after infection and vaccination but may also represent a method of choice when conducting seroepidemiological studies.

19 Jul 2021

Readers and tweeters dispense timely advice for difficult times

Your body’s immune system has produced antibodies that will kill a few thousand kinds of germs and virus. Since you are alive, the chances are quite high you will survive its producing another. Here is how the system works.

2 Mar 2021

COVID-19 pandemic has led to a decrease in hospital-wide HCV testing

New research from Boston Medical Center finds that the COVID-19 emergency systemic changes made to decrease in-person visits during the pandemic have led to a decrease in hospital-wide Hepatitis C (HCV) testing by 50 percent, and a reduction in new HCV diagnoses by more than 60 percent.

4 Dec 2020

Consortium compiles recommendations for measuring HIV reservoir size in cure-directed studies

Spearheaded by scientists at The Wistar Institute, top worldwide HIV researchers from the BEAT-HIV Martin Delaney Collaboratory to Cure HIV-1 Infection by Combination Immunotherapy compiled the first comprehensive set of recommendations on how to best measure the size of persistent HIV reservoirs during cure-directed clinical studies.

7 Sep 2020

Focusing on healthcare quality as a business strategy

Despite two decades of effort - targeting care processes, outcomes, and most recently the value of care - progress has been slow in closing the gap between quality and cost in the US healthcare system.

7 Mar 2020

HORIBA Medical announces first multi-site installation of HELO modular automated hematology platform

HORIBA UK Ltd, Medical announces the go live of the first multi-site installation of its new HELO high throughput fully automated hematology platform within the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.

From HORIBA Scientific UK 31 May 2019

NeuroPointDX launches NPDX AA test to identify metabolic subtypes associated with autism

NeuroPointDX, a division of Stemina Biomarker Discovery, today announced the commercial launch of its NPDX AA test, which identifies metabolic subtypes associated with autism spectrum disorder.

1 Nov 2018

Study finds factors that help or hinder patient involvement in clinical trials of mitochondrial disease

As clinical trials gear up with the aim of attaining the first FDA-approved treatments for mitochondrial disease, a new study reports for the first time what patients and families say would motivate them for or against participating in such research trials.

7 Jun 2018

Researchers develop fully automated end-to-end blood testing device

Researchers from the Biomedical Engineering Department at Rutgers University have developed an end-to-end blood testing device that integrates robotic phlebotomy with downstream sample processing.

7 Jun 2018

GHHS collaborates with IllumiCare to help clinicians make better decisions at point-of-care

Seeing prices and calorie counts on a restaurant menu allows consumers to make better choices when eating out. In the same way, physicians make better choices when presented with the financial cost and potential risks of medications, labs and radiology tests when inside the electronic medical record making treatment decisions.

14 Mar 2018

Novel device can reduce contamination of blood cultures, study finds

A study at the University of Nebraska Medical Center found that a novel device can significantly reduce contamination of blood cultures, potentially reducing risky overtreatment and unnecessary use of antibiotics for many patients.

17 May 2017

UI research may help raise awareness and reduce practice of ‘rainbow draw’

University of Iowa researchers have shown that most of the extra vials of blood drawn for lab tests never get used and are instead discarded.

8 Nov 2016