[Everyday questions in laboratory medicine].

Until the sixties, it was usual for a MD to make some lab tests in a room close to his medical office. During the next decades, the number of lab tests has exploded, and the performance of the test became dissociated from the MD ordering the tests. All Belgian clinical laboratories are involved in the management of a quality system, and within it, the general practitioner is essential as partner.

Diagnosis and prognosis of overt disseminated intravascular coagulation in a general hospital -- meaning of the ISTH score system, fibrin monomers, and lipoprotein-C-reactive protein complex formation.

The meaning, the utility, and the prognostic significance of the International Society of Thrombosis and Hemostasis overt disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) score and other parameters of coagulation activation including soluble fibrin monomer complexes (SFMC), antithrombin and protein C consumption, and formation of lipoprotein-C-reactive protein (LP-CRP) complexes (MDA slope 1 and flag A2) were evaluated in 165 inpatients from a general hospital for whom DIC testing was required by the attending physicians. Of these 165 patients, 148 had an underlying disease that clearly justified the laboratory request from our systematic post hoc review of the clinical charts. Of these 148 patients, 28 had a positive overt DIC score, 19 had an A2 flag, and 4 had both.

A new device for measurement of fibrin clot lysis: application to the euglobulin clot lysis time.

Background: Determination of clot lysis times on whole blood, diluted whole blood, plasma or plasma fraction has been used for many years to assess the overall activity of the fibrinolytic system. We designed a completely computerised semi-automatic 8-channel device for measurement and determination of fibrin clot lysis. The lysis time is evaluated by a mathematical analysis of the lysis curve and the results are expressed in minute (range: 5 to 9999).