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Fritsma Factor Gets New Skin

Fritsma Factor participants, you've arrived at our newly remodeled FF home page.

October 2022 Quick Question Summary: Underfilled Tubes

A September 20 inquiry from Carolina Vilchez inspired our October Quick Question. Here are the stem and responses from 35 participants:

Factor XIII Control?

From “Kaarin,” We are wondering what other labs are using for a positive (deficient) control for factor XIII assay by the clot-lysis methodology. Deficient plasma? Hello, Kaarin, thanks for your question, which will attract some responses soon. A quick check of major plasma control distributors shows that only Hyphen BioMed, distributed in North America by Aniara, […]

Should all Coagulation Specimens be PPP?

A reprise of a post from a few years ago: At the Mayo Medical Laboratories Coagulation Testing Quality Conference in Minneapolis, Dr. Dorothy Adcock Funk of Esoterix reported on the 2008 revision of Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) Standard H21-A5, Collection, Transport, and Processing of Blood Specimens for Testing Plasma-Based Coagulation Assays and Molecular Hemostasis Assays. One interesting […]

Plavix and PPIs

This post duplicates a 2009 FF post. My colleague and friend Dan Southern, Professor Emeritus, Western Carolina University, alerted me to a Wall Street Journal article describing how protein pump inhibitors such as Nexium, taken for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), inhibit the absorption of clopidogrel (Plavix). Many cardiologists prescribe Nexium to control the heartburn some […]

PTT Mixing Study Prolongs Instead of Shortening

This is a prior-year post that has resurfaced as we have switched over to our new provider and format.

Northeast Laboratory Conference 10/18–10/19 2022

At the 2022 Northeast Laboratory Conference, October 18 and 19, I [Geo] presented "Antithrombotic Therapy, Whatever Happened to Warfarin?"

World Thrombosis Day 10-13-2022

Venous thromboembolism is a condition in which a clot forms in the deep veins of the leg, groin, or arm [deep vein thrombosis, DVT ].

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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

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