Blog

Q&A with Chris Bombardier

Posted on

Q: Our audience is primarily Laboratory Professionals, what message you would have for them? A: I actually started my career working in a hemophilia research lab where I enjoyed learning more of the scientific aspect of the disease. I still miss working in the lab, factor assays were my favorite part. They were like a puzzle and   …Continue Reading


Thoughts on Thawing

Posted on

The method of thawing a frozen sample in the coagulation lab has a significant effect on testing results. It is imperative that the samples be thawed properly. The preferred method is thawing for 3-5 minutes in a circulating water bath. The thawing time of 3-5 minutes is based on a 1.0 mL vial and may need   …Continue Reading


Have You Heard the New Musical Group King?

Posted on

Is this the real thing? It’s not lyophilized….


Fresh Frozen Plasma vs Lyophilized: What should your lab use?

Posted on

Coagulation laboratories have a variety of choices for reagents.  What are the differences and why are they important? Fresh frozen reagents are collected from the donor and frozen immediately.  After thawing, they require no preparation, thaw and go. Lyophilization is the process of freeze drying a reagent to remove the liquid component. The process leaves   …Continue Reading


Lot to Lot Correlations

Posted on

Lot to lot correlations are common in today’s clinical laboratories. As explained in the recent CAP today article, “Differences between reagents and testing systems are known to contribute to test result variability, making crossover studies necessary when using new reagents or implementing new testing systems.”[1] Regulatory and accreditation standards require the lab to evaluate each   …Continue Reading


FVIII Activity: Chromogenic Assay Vs. Clot-Based?

Posted on

Factor VIII activity can be measured in different ways. Two of the assays used to assess the Factor VIII activity are the one-stage clotting assay and the chromogenic assay. The one-stage clotting assay is still the most widely used. The one stage clotting assay measures the extent a plasma sample corrects the coagulation time of   …Continue Reading


Factor Sensitivities – What’s the value, anyway? [Pun intended]

Posted on

Currently the global test used to detect intrinsic factor deficiencies in patients with bleeding is the activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT). The APTT reagent used should be sensitive to a reduction in coagulation factors such as FVIII and FIX that are commonly associated with bleeding. Literature states that it is desirable to have APTT systems   …Continue Reading


Congenital Factor Deficient Plasma vs. Immunodepleted Factor VIII Deficient Plasma

Posted on

Using Factor VIII Deficient Plasma from a human donor with a congenital deficiency is preferred to using an artificial immunodepleted Factor VIII substrate. There are several aspects that make congenital factor deficient plasma preferable to immunodepleted. The immunodepletion process During the immunodepletion process, not only is the Factor VIII removed, but the vonWillebrand factor is   …Continue Reading


3 tips that could change your coagulation laboratory results

Posted on

Laboratories use normal reference ranges (NRRs) to identify whether a test result is within the normal range or outside this range (and to thus identify an abnormal result). The relative false positive to true positive rate increases substantially for rare disorders and is a particular problem with congenital disorders such as protein C, protein S,   …Continue Reading


Making Sense of Mixing Studies

Posted on

A physician may order mixing studies when a patient’s prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time, (aPTT) or both PT and aPTT are prolonged outside the upper limit of the laboratory’s established normal range. Determining the cause of the prolongation It is important to determine if the cause of the prolongation is due to a   …Continue Reading