Atherosclerosis is a multifactorial disease with risk factors that have multiple effects. In the identification and treatment of asymptomatic individuals at high risk for developing coronary heart disease (CHD) different risk scoring schemes are used in everyday routine. The aim of this study was to compare SCORE recommended for our country with two other most frequently used...
The aim of the present study is to describe the influence of glucocorticoid immunosuppression on serum cystatin C concentration in renal transplant patients. To evaluate the influence of immunosuppressive regimens, espe- cially glucocorticoids, on serum cystatin C level, 38 clinically stable patients on immunosuppression therapy with low-dose glucocorticoids were compared to 30...
Osteoporosis is a systemic disease characterized by low bone mass and high bone turnover markers in postmenopausal women (PM). The relationship between biochemical bone markers C-telopeptides of type 1 collagen (CTX) and osteocalcin (OC), and bone mineral density (BMD) in the postmenopausal period was examined in 104 PM women divided into three groups according to their BMD...
The aim of this prospective control study was a quantitative evaluation of the activity of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in certain time intervals, using articular indexes (set of 28 sensitive and 28 swollen joints), laboratory parameters (Hb, Hct, Er, Le and Plt) and acute phase reactants (ESR, RF, CRP); to determine which of the acute phase reactants is the most useful biochemical...
Osteoarthrosis of the knee is a degenerative disease with inflammatory episodes objectively shown by arthrosonography. Cartilage Oligomeric Matrix Protein - COMP is a useful biomarker for early cartilage destruction. The aim of this paper is a comparative analysis of the clinical, arthro sonographic findings and the COMP concentration in the sera of patients for the detection of...
Urine samples are easily attainable which makes them ideal substrates for biomarker research. Various techniques have been employed to unravel the urine proteome and identify disease biomarkers. Even though the presence of high abundance proteins in urine is not so pronounced as in the case of plasma, the presence of proteolytic products, many of which at low abundance, along...
Individualised therapy and factors determining such variability among patients are confusing to both physicians and their patients because of the observed therapeutic, metabolic and toxic response. The same is true about antifungal azoles. They are under the influence and become targets of metabolic drug-drug interactions where more than one active form of the drug may be...
Proteins in clinical practice are analyzed as important parameters in the determination and treatment of different diseases. The scopes of the analyses are mainly concentrated in two levelsanalyses of the complete protein profile, or determination of an isolated protein. In this work, despite of the use of conventional methods, mainly electrophoresis, new techniques have been...
Oxidative stress is considered to be a unifying link between diabetes mellitus (DM) and its complications, including nephropathy (DN). The aim of this study was to determine the parameters of oxidative injury of lipids and proteins as well as the activity of ectoenzymes in the urine of DN patients. The study included 40 individuals: 10 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and...
Adipose tissue has long been regarded as an organ the sole purpose of which was to store excess energy as triglycerides, and release energy as free fatty acids, which itself is an essential self-defense system for survival during starvation. This point of view has now changed, fat tissue has emerged as an endocrine and secretory organ affecting more than one metabolic pathway...
Exposure to potential carcinogens is among the etiological factors for renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the urinary bladder. RCC is very resistant, while TCC exhibits a high recurrence rate and multifocality. Cytosolic glutathione S-transferases (GST) are a superfamily of enzymes which protect normal cells by catalyzing conjugation reactions...
B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is a quantitative marker for heart failure. The use of BNP in patients with dyspnea has consistently shown to improve patient management and reduce treatment cost. Additional indications with the potential to improve patient management include treatment monitoring in acute and chronic heart failure, pulmonary embolism, and coronary artery disease.
The purpose of this research was to compare the diagnostic values of laboratory variables, to present quantitative evaluations of the diagnostic test with reference to sensitivity, and specificity, the predictive value of the positive and negative test and precision of the test for anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP 2) antibodies, rheumatoid factor (RF), C-reactive...
The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies (anti- CCP2) in RA and non-RA patients and to evaluate the combination of these auto-antibodies with some other markers such as RF and CRP. We examined the enzymatic activity of ADA in RA patients without therapy and RA patients treated with methotrexate. Therefore, the aim of...
The determination of serum level of the prostate specific antigen (PSA) is widely used for detection and management of prostate cancer. Analytical variability between the various PSA assays on the market has been reported. This discrepancy in the PSA results was shown to be related to non-equimolar detection of total PSA (tPSA) but also to a lack of assay standardization and...
A taxol-producing endophyte was Fusarium arthrosporioides. As a novel taxol resource, a taxol-producing endophyte was successfully isolated from the yew tree, Taxus cuspidata Sieb. et Zucc. According to the morphological characterization and the ITS4-ITS5 sequences, the isolated endophytic fungus was identified as Fusarium arthrosporioides. Fermentation conditions for taxol...
Through the release of the SRPS ISO 15189:2008 standard entitled "Medicinske laboratorije: posebni zahtevi za kvalitet i kompetentnost" conditions have been created for medical laboratory accreditation in Serbia. The application of the ISO 15189:2007 standard is an accepted mechanism for improvement of the quality of medical laboratory services throughout EU today. In that way...
Non-coding RNAs represent a specific type of RNAs that are non translated into proteins. They participate in a number of different regulatory processes concerning the transcriptional and posttranscriptional level. This family contains different types, each mainly 20-30 nucleotides long, excised from longer precursors. Some of them, such as siRNAs (small interfering RNAs) are...
Using serum cystatin C in estimating glomerular filtration rate (GFR) has in recent times been recommended. A number of simple formulas for calculating GFR have been derived specifically from serum cystatin C concentrations. The purpose of this study was to assess the significance of cystatin C and of the two most frequently applied of these formulas in estimating glomerular...
The preanalytical phase is particularly important in hematology, where counts of particles and cells are performed in whole anticoagulated blood. The correct use and concentration of anticoagulant is mandatory to avoid spurious results, which can influence clinical decision. EDTA is the anticoagulant of choice, but it has some limits, especially for preserving stability and shape...
Elevated free radical production and/or insufficient antioxidative defense results in cellular oxidant stress responses. Sustained and/or intense oxidative insults can overcome cell defenses resulting in accumulated damage to macromolecules, leading to loss of cell function, membrane damage, and ultimately to cell death. Oxidative stress (OS) can result from conditions including...
The presence of free radicals in biological material has been discovered some 50 years ago. In physiological conditions, free radicals, in the first place the ones of oxygen and nitrogen, are continuously synthesized and involved in the regulation of a series of physiological processes. The excess of free radicals is efficiently eliminated from the body in order to prevent their...
The largest number of laboratory errors occur in the preanalytical phase and are mainly due to educational and organizational reasons. The experience of our institution, as well as the results of an Italian interlaboratory effort to detect and reduce errors/risk of errors in laboratory medicine will be illustrated.
Ischemic heart disease is the most frequent cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. It is developed on the basis of atherosclerosis which is today considered a chronic inflammatory disease. It is documented by an increase in inflammatory and immune biomarkers, such as Creactive protein, fibrinogen, neopterin, leukocytes, lymphocytes and others, that are significantly...
Trends in clinical laboratory practice place more demands on the quality of patient specimens. Advances in analytical performance (i.e., increased automation, reduced sample volume, increased assay sensitivity), as well as efficiency and cost reduction gains (i.e., throughput, test turnaround time) have improved medical practice. These changes, however, have caused an increased...