Laboratory policies and practices for thyroid function tests in Croatia: survey on behalf of Working Group for Laboratory Endocrinology of the Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine.

Introduction: Laboratory plays important part in screening, diagnosis, and management of thyroid disorders. The aim of this study was to estimate current laboratory preanalytical, analytical and postanalytical practices and policies in Croatia.

Materials And Methods: Working Group for Laboratory Endocrinology of the Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine designed a questionnaire with 27 questions and statements regarding practices and protocols in measuring thyroid function tests.

Serum and urine osmolality: 8 hours, 24 hours and 1-month sample stability.

Objectives: The body of literature varies significantly regarding serum and urine osmolality stability. Therefore, our aim was to investigate the stability of serum and urine osmolality at different temperatures (room temperature (RT) 4-8 °C, -20 °C) and time conditions (8 h, 24 h, 1 month).

Methods: The stability study was conducted following the CRESS guidelines, including 40 serum and urine samples.

Haemoglobin A1c-based screening for prediabetes and diabetes mellitus: a multi-center study in Croatian adult population.

Introduction: Based on the hypothesis that there is a substantial rate of adults with prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes mellitus (DM), our aim was to perform haemoglobin A1c (HbA)-based screening in a cohort of Croatian adults and estimate the prevalence of prediabetes and undiagnosed DM according to American Diabetes Association criteria.

Materials And Methods: This multi-center, cross-sectional study performed in six Croatian hospitals included 5527 patients aged 40 to 70 years admitted to the Emergency Department or undergoing a primary care check-up. Haemoglobin A1c was measured from leftover whole blood samples using the enzymatic method on either Alinity c or Architect c-series analyser (Abbott Laboratories, Chicago, USA).

Women in sports: The applicability of reference intervals for 6 commercially available testosterone immunoassays (HemSter Study).

Background: Testosterone levels in female athletes are increased due to their physical activity and correlate with their exercise volume. We therefore hypothesized that the reference intervals (RIs) derived from the general population are not applicable for female athletes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of the given RIs for 6 commercially available testosterone immunoassays in a group of female athletes.

Simple thrombin-based method for eliminating fibrinogen interference in serum protein electrophoresis of haemodialysed patients.

Introduction: Serum samples of haemodialysed patients collected through vascular access devices, central venous catheter (CVC) can contain residual heparin, which can cause incomplete clotting and consequently fibrinogen interference in serum protein electrophoresis (SPE). We hypothesized that this problem may be overcome by addition of thrombin and aimed to find a simple thrombin-based method for fibrinogen interference removal.

Materials And Methods: Blood samples of 51 haemodialysed patients with CVC were drawn through catheter into Clot Activator Tube (CAT) and Rapid Serum Tube Thrombin (RST) vacutainers (Becton Dickinson, New Jersey, USA) following the routine hospital protocols and analysed with gel-electrophoresis (Sebia, Lisses, France).