[Urinary investigations in the diagnosis and monitoring of monoclonal gammopathies in daily practice].

The management of monoclonal gammopathies remains a public health issue with an incidence greater than 3% of the population over 50 years. Laboratory investigations, including urinary investigations play a key role in the diagnosis and monitoring of the patients. Urinary investigations are not recommended when screening monoclonal gammopathies.

[Brain abscess due to Nocardia cyriacigeorgica simulating an ischemic stroke].

Nocardia spp. are bacteria often implicated in pulmonary diseases and central nervous system infections, especially in immunocompromised patients. We report here the case of an immunocompromised woman presenting an insidious brain abcess initially treated as a cerebral stroke.

Evaluation of the DCA Vantage analyzer for HbA 1c assay.

Background: Measurement of HbA 1c is key in monitoring diabetic patients in both laboratories and clinical units, where HbA 1c results are used as part of patient education.

Methods: We have evaluated the DCA Vantage, a new device for immunological assay of HbA 1c. HbA 1c results obtained were evaluated in terms of precision, linearity, specificity and practicability, and were compared with results obtained by a Variant II HPLC method.