New Lab Tests Online websites have been launched over the last few months on Spanish, German, Polish, Hungarian, Italian and Australian site. The content on these new sites reflects the practice of medicine and laboratory science in these countries and therefore may be different to that on the UK site. Lab Tests Online UK is designed to help you, the patient, understand the way lab tests are used to diagnose, monitor and screen for a broad range of conditions and diseases. It was made possible by a unique collaborative partnership between the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.
Read the 'Sense about Science' leaflet called Making Sense of Testing which challenges the increasingly promoted concept that testing healthy people for hidden disease is a good idea.
Expectant mothers with a Rhesus negative blood group who carry a Rhesus positive fetus can develop antibodies which attack the fetus or subsequent babies. All Rhesus negative women are therefore offered one or two injections during pregnancy to prevent the development of these antibodies. If both fetus and mother are Rhesus negative, these injections are given unnecessarily. A manual lab test has been available for some time that detects fetal DNA in the mother’s blood and predicts whether the baby is Rhesus positive or negative. This test is widely used for mothers who have become sensitised, but is too labour intensive to use as a screening test. Blood transfusion staff in Bristol used an automated high throughput version of the DNA technique and compared it with results in cord blood from over 1800 deliveries. The correct result was predicted in almost 96% of pregnancies, with inconclusive or unobtainable results in 3.4% and only 0.16%. of false negatives. They concluded that if this test had been applied as a guide to treatment, only 2% of women would have received injections unnecessarily compared with 38% without the test.
Recently two independent groups of researchers have shown that heart attacks are less frequent in those with a low ‘bad’cholesterol (LDL cholesterol) if their ‘good’ cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) is normal or high. HDL cholesterol is still an important risk factor even though drugs (statins) may have reduced LDL cholesterol to very low levels. Life style factors that help to maintain the level of ‘good’ cholesterol are not smoking, having a normal body weight and taking regular exercise.
