All Posts

Precision BioLogic Announces New CEOs

Michael Scott, CEO of Precision BioLogic, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, announced a new management structure Monday, January 17, 2011. Stephen Duff, Director of Product Strategy and Innovation, and Jennifer Mills, Chief Operating Officer, are now co-CEOs. Steve will focus his attention primarily in the external arena, addressing customer needs through new product development, sales and marketing. Jennifer will […]

Russell Viper Venom Time

Just for fun, what is another (older) name for the original Russell viper venom (RVV) assay and what was its original purpose?

Change in Vorapaxar Study

Here is a January 13 announcement from theheart.org indicating that Merck has discontinued a portion of a phase III trial of vorapaxar, an oral antiplatelet drug that blocks the thrombin membrane receptor protease activated receptor-1 (PAR-1). The study change responds to safety data involving study participants who had had a stroke. The myocardial infarction and peripheral vascular disease arms of […]

Reprise: Dilute Thrombin Time for DTI Monitoring

From “Ipaz” at Iline Microsystems: For the plasma dilute thrombin time, why is the patient plasma diluted with normal pool plasma and not with saline solution? Thank you for your question. The dilute thrombin time is currently produced by Hyphen BioMed and marketed in North American by Aniara as their Direct Thrombin Inhibitors assay. The assay is designed to monitor the efficacy of dabigatran, […]

Anticoagulant Therapy

Joe Lamb’s Top…Seven

From Joe Lamb, St Francis Hospital; The top ten problems in coag, are you sure you want these? I have some: 1. Orders for a factor V when they really wanted a factor V Leiden. 2. Orders for platelet antibodies when they really want an HIT screen/profile. 3. Orders for fibrin split products, we don’t […]

Top Ten Coag Problems

Cara Calvo, director of the Medical Technology program at the University of Washington contacted me on Monday about the Northwest Medical Laboratory Science Symposiumplanned for October 12-15, 2011 at the Lynnwood Convention Center, Lynnwood, Washington. She reminded me of a workshop I used to present with Lynn Quarles of Diagnostica Stago entitled “The Top Ten Problems in the […]

Quick Question Results: PFP

In a December 2, 2010 post, Bob Gosselin at UC-Davis in Sacramento suggests that the term platelet free plasma (PFP) should be reserved for plasma with a platelet count of zero, achievable only by filtration; and that we should call plasma with a platelet count less than 10,000/mcL platelet poor plasma (PPP). I agreed in principle the names […]

Heparin Calibrator Set?

From JK Henrickson at Beckman-Coulter: We have several customers who want to perform the ex vivo heparin therapeutic range study for their partial thromboplastin time (PTT) heparin assay, however, their institution does not have these types of patients very often. Is there a commercial source for heparinized plasmas, specifically unfractionated heparin? Hello, and thank you for your […]

Hepatitis A Testing

Hello George, What is the best way to determine hepatitis A immunity? We currently do a total hepatitis A antibody and if that is positive we reflex to the hepatitis A IgM antibody. Is there a single test that would determine immunity? Sincerely, Mark Lesage Lab Manager, Skyline Hospital White Salmon, WA Hello, Mark. Your question […]

RVV and Hemophilia

Here is an interesting question from someone at United Lab: Dear George, I have spiked hemophilic plasma with crude Russell viper venom (RVV). The TEG shows that an 81-minute R value is corrected to 3.2 minutes. This suggests that RVV generates a clot without factor VIII. Your comment please. Thank you for your question. Yes, […]

Load more

George Fritsma is a medical laboratory scientist, educator, and author. George is a member of the International Society on Thrombosis and Hemostasis, the International Society for Laboratory Hematology, and the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science.

Cheat Sheets from George

Quick Question