Background: Laboratory errors arise at any stage of testing. Detecting these inaccuracies before results are revealed might delay diagnosis and treatment, causing patient distress. Here, we studied the preanalytical errors in a hematology laboratory....
Given the crucial role of mitochondria as the main cellular energy provider and its contribution towards tumor growth, chemoresistance, and cancer cell plasticity, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) could serve as a relevant biomarker. Thus, the profiling of...
Thyroglobulin (Tg) is a reliable marker for detecting recurrence in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) patients, but frequently occurring Tg antibodies (TgAbs) can hinder accurate measurement. We aimed to develop a preanalytical protocol for precise...
The analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) released by tumor cells holds great promise for patients with lymphoma, to refine the diagnostic procedure, clarify the prognosis, monitor the response to treatment, and detect relapses earlier. One of th...
Despite considerable morbidity and mortality, numerous cases of endocrine hypertension (EHT) forms, including primary aldosteronism (PA), pheochromocytoma and functional paraganglioma (PPGL), and Cushing’s syndrome (CS), remain undetected. We a...
The interaction between programmed death-1 receptor PD-1 and its ligands PD-L1 and PD-L2 is involved in self-tolerance, immune escape of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and COVID-19. As blood-based protein markers they bear great potential to improv...
The anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) is a glycoprotein that plays an important role in prenatal sex differentiation. It is used as a biomarker in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) diagnostics, as well as for estimating an individual’s ovarian reserve and...
The misuse of antibiotics in the cattle sector can lead to milk contamination, with concomitant effects on the dairy industry and human health. Biosensors can be applied in this field; however, the influence of the milk matrix on their activity has b...
Background and aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the possible preanalytical effect of incomplete filling of blood tubes on molecular biology assays. Materials and methods: The study population consisted of 13 healthy volunteers from whom...
Lymphocytes are key players in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis and a distinct target of several immunomodulatory treatment strategies. In this study, we aim to evaluate the effect of various pre-analytic conditions on immune cell counts to con...
Background: Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, fatal, and transmissible neurodegenerative disorder caused by prion proteins. Handling specimens from individuals with suspected or confirmed cases presents a safety challenge to hospital w...
Discrepant sample processing remains a significant challenge within blood metabolomics research, introducing non-biological variation into the measured metabolome and biasing downstream results. Inconsistency during the pre-analytical phase can influ...
Recently, CEN/TS 17626:2021, the European pre-analytical standard for human specimens intended for microbiome DNA analysis, was published. Although this standard relates to diagnostic procedures for microbiome analysis and is relevant for in vitro di...
Metabolomics can be significantly influenced by a range of pre-analytical factors, such as sample collection, pre-processing, aliquoting, transport, storage and thawing. This therefore shows the crucial need for standardizing the pre-analytical phase...
Dysregulation of blood sphingolipids is an emerging topic in clinical science. The objective of this study was to determine preanalytical biases that typically occur in clinical and translational studies and that influence measured blood sphingolipid...
Liquid biopsy utilizing cell-free DNA (cfDNA) has become an emergent field of study for cancer screening and monitoring. While blood-based liquid biopsy has been investigated extensively, there are advantages to using other body fluids. Using saliva...
Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are useful biomarkers of hemolysis. Since blood cells are the main origins of circulating miRNAs, we evaluated blood cell-related pre-analytical modification of the miRNA signatures during blood drawing and serum proces...
Metabolomics provides a comprehensive assessment of numerous small molecules in biological samples. As it integrates the effects of exogenous exposures, endogenous metabolism, and genetic variation, metabolomics is well-suited for studies examining m...
Application of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology to routine clinical practice has enabled characterization of personalized cancer genomes to identify patients likely to have a response to targeted therapy. The proper selection of tumor samp...
Saliva offers many advantages for point-of-care (PoC) diagnostic applications due to non-invasive, easy, and cost-effective methods of collection. However, the complex matrix with its non-Newtonian behavior and high viscosity poses handling challenge...
Millions of blood products are transfused every year; many lives are thus directly concerned by transfusion. The three main labile blood products used in transfusion are erythrocyte concentrates, platelet concentrates and fresh frozen plasma. Each of...
Serum and plasma are commonly used in metabolomic-epidemiology studies. Their metabolome is susceptible to differences in pre-analytical conditions and the impact of this is unclear. Participant-matched EDTA-plasma and serum samples were collected fr...
In cancer drug discovery, it is important to investigate the genetic determinants of response or resistance to cancer therapy as well as factors that contribute to adverse events in the course of clinical trials. Despite the emergence of new technolo...
Background: Quantitative urine culture (CFU/mL) remains the reference standard for diagnosing urinary tract infections (UTIs) but is limited by delayed turnaround times and sensitivity to pre-analytic factors. Multiplex PCR panels offer rapid detecti...
The recent thriving development of biobanks and associated high-throughput phenotyping studies requires the elaboration of large-scale approaches for monitoring biological sample quality and compliance with standard protocols. We present a metabolomi...
The stability of antibiotic preanalytical samples is a critical factor in therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), a practice of undoubted importance for the proper therapeutic use of antibiotics, especially in complex management patients, such as pediatri...
In clinical diagnostics and research, blood samples are one of the most frequently used materials. Nevertheless, exploring the chemical composition of human plasma and serum is challenging due to the highly dynamic influence of pre-analytical variati...
Metabolomics studies aiming to find biomarkers frequently make use of historical or multicenter cohorts. These samples often have different pre-analytical conditions that potentially affect metabolite concentrations. We studied the effect of differen...
Liquid biopsies hold great promise for the management of cancer. Reliable liquid biopsy data depend on stable and reproducible pre-analytical protocols that comply with quality measures, irrespective of the sampling and processing site. We establishe...
Aflatoxin contamination of cattle feed is responsible for serious adverse effects on animal and human health. A number of approaches have been reported to determine aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) in a variety of feed samples using aptasensors. However, rapid an...
Excellent pre-analytical stability is an essential precondition for reliable molecular profiling of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in oncological diagnostics. Therefore, in vitro degradation of ctDNA and the additional release of contaminating genomic...
Despite a lack of evidence, a bone marrow aspirate differential of 500 cells is commonly used in the clinical setting. We aimed to test the performance of 200-cell counts for daily hematological workup. In total, 660 consecutive samples were analyzed...
Proteins are essential biological macromolecules that play key regulatory roles in all biological processes. Abnormalities in these processes are often reflected in proteins, manifesting as changes in their structure, sequence, folding state, stoichi...
Background: Kappa free light chains (KFLC) are a promising new biomarker to detect neuroinflammation. Still, the impact of pre-analytical effects on KFLC concentrations was not investigated. Methods: KFLC concentrations were measured in serum and cer...
Lipids are biomolecules involved in numerous (patho-)physiological processes and their elucidation in tissue samples is of particular interest. However, tissue analysis goes hand in hand with many challenges and the influence of pre-analytical factor...
Platelet count, indices (mean volume, young—immature platelet fraction) and aggregation are widely used laboratory parameters to investigate primary hemostasis. We performed a systematic, thorough evaluation of the influence of the time-interva...
(1) Background: Various guidelines address patient preparation and its importance for venous blood sampling, such as the GP41 guideline issued by the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) and the blood collection guidelines published by the...
Background: In recent years, liquid biopsy has emerged as a promising tool for the diagnosis and prognosis of numerous diseases, including cancer. Among the biomolecules analyzed in liquid biopsies are plasma circulating microRNAs (miRNAs), small non...
RNA-based next-generation sequencing (RNA-seq) represents the gold standard for detecting gene fusion in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Despite this, RNA instability makes the management of tissue samples extremely complex, resulting in a signif...
19 May 2020
Preanalytical errors account for up to 70% of the total potentially detectable errors in the laboratory. The main problems detected are related with procedures associated with Primary Care nursing practices that are directly involved in the preanalyt...
Background/Objectives: Pre-analytical variation is a major challenge in metabolomics, yet most stability studies have focused on healthy volunteers and have overlooked the impact of disease and medication. To address this gap, we conducted a pilot st...
Metabolomics is a powerful technology with broad applications in life science that, like other -omics approaches, requires high-quality samples to achieve reliable results and ensure reproducibility. Therefore, along with quality assurance, methods t...
Biobanks are essential for precision oncology, providing high-quality materials for biomedical research. Liquid biopsy has become a key tool for non-invasive detection of tumor-derived biomarkers, including circulating tumor DNA, proteins, and extrac...
Circulating miRNAs are ideal diagnostics and prognostics biomarkers in cancer since altered levels of specific miRNAs have been associated to development/progression of several cancers. Physical activity is a recognized preventive strategy against se...
Background: Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) has become a cornerstone of liquid biopsy applications, offering promise for early disease detection and monitoring. However, its widespread clinical adoption is limited by variability in pre-analytical processing, e...
Aflatoxin exposure is endemic in developing countries with warm, humid climates that promote toxigenic mold growth on crops and foodstuffs. Estimating human aflatoxin exposure is key to identifying and abating contamination sources. Serum aflatoxin B...
D-dimer is a multifaceted biomarker of concomitant activation of coagulation and fibrinolysis, which is routinely used for ruling out pulmonary embolism (PE) and/or deep vein thrombosis (DVT) combined with a clinical pretest probability assessment. T...
Lupus anticoagulant (LAC) is a heterogeneous mix of autoimmune antibodies that prolongs phospholipid-dependent clotting assays. Its diagnosis can be a real challenge in the hemostasis laboratory. In this review, the author describes the main pitfalls...
Background: MYCN amplification (MNA), segmental chromosomal aberrations (SCA) and ALK activating mutations are biomarkers for risk-group stratification and for targeted therapeutics for neuroblastoma, both of which are currently assessed on tissue bi...
This review article compiles critical pre-analytical factors for sample collection and extraction of eight uncommon or underexplored biological specimens (human breast milk, ocular fluids, sebum, seminal plasma, sweat, hair, saliva, and cerebrospinal...
of 7