Publications by authors named "Ila Singh"

Background: Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in pediatric type 1 diabetes (T1D), occurring in approximately 20% of patients, with an economic cost of $5.1 billion/year in the United States. Despite multiple risk factors for postdiagnosis DKA, there is still a need for explainable, clinic-ready models that accurately predict DKA hospitalization in established patients with pediatric T1D.

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Context.—: Laboratory testing, beyond what is essential for managing health, is considered low-value care, posing patient risks and wasting resources. Measuring excess testing on a national level is crucial to identify waste and optimize healthcare resource allocation for maximum impact.

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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a serious threat to human, animal, and plant health on a global scale. Search and elimination techniques should be used to effectively counter the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. With only a few novel drugs in clinical development, the quest for plant-based alternatives to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance among bacteria has accelerated.

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Objective: To delineate quantitatively the allergen sensitization patterns in a large pediatric cohort and inform the selection of a region-specific panel of allergen tests for timely and cost-effective in vitro atopy screening.

Study Design: IgE levels for specific allergens from patients in the Texas Children's Health System were analyzed retrospectively. Statistical and network analyses were conducted to reveal sensitization patterns.

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Background: In 2011, the American Board of Medical Specialties established clinical informatics (CI) as a subspecialty in medicine, jointly administered by the American Board of Pathology and the American Board of Preventive Medicine. Subsequently, many institutions created CI fellowship training programs to meet the growing need for informaticists. Although many programs share similar features, there is considerable variation in program funding and administrative structures.

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Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a pathogen that poses a significant threat in cases of chronic mastitis in dairy animals. The ability of MRSA to persist in the host is attributed to various virulence factors, genes encoding surface adhesins, and determinants of antibiotic resistance, which provide it a survival advantage. This investigation focused to determine the virulence factors, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profile and biofilm production potential of 46 MRSA isolates from 300 bovine mastitis milk samples.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study analyzed pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19 during the Delta variant surge from July to August 2021 at six U.S. children's hospitals with 947 total patients, 80.1% of whom had COVID-19.
  • Among these, 37.8% suffered from severe illness, influenced by factors like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) coinfection and obesity, which significantly increased severity risk in specific age groups.
  • The results highlight the importance of recognizing these risk factors to enhance pediatric care and inform strategies for COVID-19 vaccination and prevention efforts.
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This study evaluated the real-world performance of six test systems for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in 138 pediatric and 110 adult maternal patients. Nasopharyngeal swabs were tested directly using the Aptima™ SARS-CoV-2 (Aptima) and Simplexa™ COVID-19 Direct (Simplexa), and with Altona RealStar RT-PCR and CDC RT-PCR with nucleic acid extracted on the Roche MagNA Pure 96 (Altona-MP96) or bioMérieux EMAG (Altona-EMAG). Overall percent-positive and percent-negative agreements among the six test systems were, respectively: Aptima: 94.

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Context.—: Clinical laboratory processes that require cooperation among geographically distinct sections often face challenges. We describe these challenges as related to the Gram staining of cerebrospinal fluid, a key test in the management of patients with suspected central nervous system infections, and our attempts to improve quality outcomes.

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Context.—: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) changed the dynamics of health care delivery, shifting patient priorities and deferring care perceived as less urgent. Delayed or eliminated care may place patients at risk for adverse outcomes.

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Background: While the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is primarily based on detection of viral RNA, the detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies is useful for assessing past prevalence of the disease, and in corroborating a current infection in challenging cases. Sensitive and specific immunoassays provide the ability to identify exposure to SARS-CoV-2, to determine seroconversion, to confirm eligibility for donation of convalescent plasma as well as play an essential part in epidemiological studies. We report on the validation of the Ansh Laboratories SARS-CoV-2 IgG and SARS-CoV-2 IgM ELISA immunoassays.

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Objectives: Evaluation of serostatus against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has emerged as an important tool in identification of exposure to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We report on the validation of the Vitros Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Total (CoV2T) assay for qualitative serologic testing of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.

Methods: We performed validation studies according to Commission of Office Laboratories Accreditation guidelines, using samples previously tested for SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).

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Plasma metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) is a new diagnostic method used to potentially identify multiple pathogens with a single DNA-based diagnostic test. The test is expensive, and little is understood about where it fits into the diagnostic schema. We describe our experience at Texas Children's Hospital with the mNGS assay by Karius from Redwood City, CA, to determine whether mNGS offers additional diagnostic value when performed within 1 week before or after conventional testing (CT) (i.

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Objectives: To demonstrate the impact of genetics specialists on identifying test order errors and improving reimbursement for genetic testing.

Methods: Forty-four cases in which whole exome sequencing (WES) was performed but not reimbursed were reviewed by a genetic counselor through simulated prospective and retrospective reviews.

Results: Fifty-two percent of WES requests were ordered by nongenetics providers.

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Objective: The calculation of HCO and base excess in current blood gas analysis is based on the Siggaard-Andersen equation. One of the constants in this equation is dependent on the known buffering capacity of hemoglobin A. We sought to investigate differences in buffering capacity between adult hemoglobin A and fetal hemoglobin F as a potential explanation for the observed poor correlation between calculated base excess in umbilical cord blood and newborn outcomes.

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Appropriate utilization of clinical laboratory services is important for patient care and requires institutional stewardship. Clinical laboratory stewardship programs are dedicated to improving the ordering, retrieval, and interpretation of appropriate laboratory tests. In addition, these programs focus on developing, maintaining, and improving systems to provide proper financial coverage for medically necessary testing.

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Objectives: The goal of this study is to assess the ability of the T2Candida platform (T2 Biosystems, Lexington, MA) to accurately identify Candida species from pediatric blood specimens with low volumes.

Methods: Whole blood from 15 children with candidemia was collected immediately following blood culture draw. The amount of blood required by the system was reduced by pipetting whole blood directly onto the T2Candida cartridge.

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Evaluation of the Cobas 4800 test demonstrated that Cobas had a low rate of cross-reactivity with low-risk human papillomavirus (lrHPV), a 3.74% disconcordance rate between prealiquots and postaliquots, and failure rates of 4.57% and 1.

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XMRV or xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related retrovirus, a recently discovered retrovirus, has been linked to both prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Recently, the teams of Drs. Shyh-Ching Lo and Harvey Alter discovered the presence of sequences closely related to XMRV in the blood of 86.

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Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a multisystem disorder characterized by prolonged and severe fatigue that is not relieved by rest. Attempts to treat CFS have been largely ineffective primarily because the etiology of the disorder is unknown. Recently, CFS has been associated with xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) as well as other murine leukemia virus (MLV)-related viruses, though not all studies have found these associations.

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Background: Xenotropic murine leukemia-related retrovirus (XMRV) is a recently discovered retrovirus that has been linked to human prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Both diseases affect a large fraction of the world population, with prostate cancer affecting one in six men, and CFS affecting an estimated 0.4 to 1% of the population.

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Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) was recently discovered in human prostate cancers and is the first gammaretrovirus known to infect humans. While gammaretroviruses have well-characterized oncogenic effects in animals, they have not been shown to cause human cancers. We provide experimental evidence that XMRV is indeed a gammaretrovirus with protein composition and particle ultrastructure highly similar to Moloney murine leukemia virus (MoMLV), another gammaretrovirus.

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