News & Events
This change will take effect February 24, 2012
Overview and Clinical Utility:
Effective February 24, 2012 PathGroup will implement the Optimized Serum Anti-Thyrogobulin Assay. This assay is intended to be used as an aid in the diagnosis of Hashimoto’s and Graves’ diseases which are autoimmune diseases affecting the thyroid gland.
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This change will take effect February 6, 2012
Overview and Clinical Utility:
Effective February 6, 2012, PathGroup will implement the Restandardized Serum Folate Assay. Folate is an essential vitamin vital to normal cell growth and DNA synthesis. Folate deficiency can be caused by insufficient dietary intake, malabsorption or excessive folate utilization which occurs very commonly during pregnancy, alcoholism, hepatitis, or other liver‐damaging diseases. World Health Organization Technical Consultation states that a folate less than 4 ng/mL is considered deficient and can lead to megaloblastic anemia and ultimately to severe neurological problems.
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This change will take effect December 15, 2011
Overview and Clinical Utility:
Effective December 15, 2011, PathGroup will change testing kits for Toxoplasma IgM testing in house. The Platelia Toxo IgM is an in vitro diagnostic test kit allowing the qualitative detection of anti-Toxoplasma gondii in human serum or plasma (EDTA, Heparin, or Citrate). The Platelia Toxo IgM assay is presumptive for detection of anti-Toxoplasma gondii antibodies and presumptive for the diagnosis of acute, recent, or reactivated Toxoplasma gondii infection. The performance of the Platelia Toxo IgM assay has not been established for neonate testing.
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This change will take effect May 17, 2012
Overview and Clinical Utility:
Because of their low sensitivity, enzyme immunoassay (EIA) tests are no longer recommended for detection of C. difficile toxin in stool specimens.1 Recent literature indicates that nucleic acid amplification-based assays provide sensitivities and specificities comparable to toxigenic culture, the current “gold standard” and provide significantly shorter turnaround times.
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