Post-arrival health screening in Karen refugees in Australia.

Objective: To document the prevalence of nutritional deficiencies, infectious diseases and susceptibility to vaccine preventable diseases in Karen refugees in Australia.

Design: Retrospective audit of pathology results.

Setting: Community based cohort in Melbourne over the period July 2006-October 2009.

Detection of BRAF mutations in patients with hairy cell leukemia and related lymphoproliferative disorders.

Hairy cell leukemia has been shown to be strongly associated with the BRAF V600E mutation. We screened 59 unenriched archived bone marrow aspirate and peripheral blood samples from 51 patients with hairy cell leukemia using high resolution melting analysis and confirmatory Sanger sequencing. The BRAF V600E mutation was detected in 38 samples (from 36 patients).

Who is responsible for the care of patients treated with warfarin therapy?

Objective: To identify potential weaknesses in the system of managing warfarin therapy.

Design, Participants And Setting: A structured interview-based study of 40 community-dwelling patients taking warfarin and with an international normalised ratio > or = 6.0 and 36 of their treating doctors (35 general practitioners and 1 specialist), conducted between July and November 2007.

Use of red blood cell transfusions in surgery.

Background: Limited blood supplies necessitate the rational use of blood products. The aim of the present study was to provide a basis for audits of red cell usage in surgery by benchmarking common practice. Application of the data to the construction of a maximum surgical blood order schedule may be relevant for centres that perform a serological crossmatch or who collect autologous units.

Utilization of preoperative autologous blood donation in elective surgery.

Background: The aim of the present paper was to review the pattern of collection and transfusion of autologous red cells for elective surgical procedures

Methods: Data on requests for preoperative autologous donation of blood were obtained from the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, Victoria and the Royal Melbourne Hospital for the calendar year 1998. The following information was collected: patient age, sex, surgery type, number of autologous units requested and collected and, if relevant, reasons for not achieving the requested collection. Transfusion of autologous units and any additional homologous units was confirmed from records at the blood banks of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Melbourne Pathology (the pathology provider performing cross-matching for the majority of autologous units collected by Australian Red Cross Blood Service, Victoria).