Reference Intervals for Common Biochemistry and Hematology Parameters in Early Pregnancy-A Prospective Study.

: The aim of this study was the determination of reference values for the common laboratory parameters in early pregnancy using a direct method and to assess their clinically significant difference, which was compared to the reference intervals for non-pregnant women with respect to the reference change value (RCV). : This study was conducted from September 2022 to December 2023 at the Clinical Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, Clinical Hospital Centre RIJEKA, Croatia. The inclusion criteria were as follows: age ≥ 18 years, singleton pregnancy, normal ultrasound examination, and prenatal screening.

Laboratory medicine in arterial hypertension.

In the initial diagnostics of arterial hypertension (AH) laboratory medicine is a cornerstone, along with a blood pressure (BP) measurement and an electrocardiogram. It mainly refers to routine blood and urine tests for diagnosis and monitoring primary hypertension and its associated conditions such as asymptomatic hypertension-mediated organ damage, chronic kidney disease and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. In addition, long term non-fatal and fatal risks for cardiovascular (CV) events in hypertension are assessed based on clinical and laboratory data.

Serum bicarbonate stability study at room temperature - influence of time to centrifugation and air exposure on bicarbonate measurement reported according to the CRESS checklist.

Objectives: The aim was to evaluate the stability of serum bicarbonate at room temperature, depending on time to centrifugation and air exposure.

Methods: Stability study was conducted in the laboratory of Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka, Croatia in January-February 2022. Nine samples from 10 volunteers were collected in clot activator gel tubes (Greiner Bio-One).

An analysis of the vitamin D overtesting in a tertiary healthcare centre.

Introduction: Vitamin D testing is excessively used in clinical practice, despite of the clinical guidelines statements against population screening for vitamin D deficiency. This study aimed to assess an annual number of performed 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25(OH)D) tests that were unsupported by the national guidelines for prevention, detection and therapy of vitamin D deficiency in adults and to calculate associated financial burden for the publicly funded healthcare.

Materials And Methods: A representative sample of requested 25(OH)D tests in 2018 (N = 474) was formed after selection and randomisation of data set (N = 5298) collected from the laboratory information system database of the Clinical Department for Laboratory Diagnostics, the Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka.

Copyright violation of predators in scientific publishing - Biochemia Medica's harmful experience and proposed solution.

is an open access journal that does not charge manuscript processing or publishing. All editorial staff are continuously educated and directed to follow the highest ethical and scholarly publishing standards in all steps of the manuscript processing. They are all laboratory medicine professionals, who apart from their regular jobs, are in charge of different phases in Journal processing as volunteers.

INFORMED CONSENT IN CROATIAN CLINICAL LABORATORY PRACTICE - CURRENT ISSUES AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES.

This paper deliberates on the place and role of informed consent in everyday clinical laboratory practice. Taking into account international ethical guidelines such as the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association, and Croatian national laws and codes such as the Act on the Protection of Patients' Rights, the Act on Medical Biochemistry, the Code of Ethics of Medical Biochemists and Medical Deontology, the Act on Healthcare Services, and the Code of Ethics of the Croatian Chamber of Healthcare Workers, an overview is given on the actual implementation of the aforementioned recommendations and regulations. A distinction between consent to a medical procedure and consent to enrolment in a research protocol is strongly stressed out.

Informed consent and ethics committee approval in laboratory medicine.

Informed consent is a process in which a human subject who is to participate in research needs to give his or her consent after being properly informed of the expected benefits as well as the potential harm of the research that will be performed. The function and purpose of the research ethics committee is to ensure that the research that will take place is in accordance with the relevant ethical standards. This means that the committee must assess the appropriateness of the design of the study reviewed.

Precision, accuracy, cross reactivity and comparability of serum indices measurement on Abbott Architect c8000, Beckman Coulter AU5800 and Roche Cobas 6000 c501 clinical chemistry analyzers.

Background: The aim of our study was to perform verification of serum indices on three clinical chemistry platforms.

Methods: This study was done on three analyzers: Abbott Architect c8000, Beckman Coulter AU5800 (BC) and Roche Cobas 6000 c501. The following analytical specifications were verified: precision (two patient samples), accuracy (sample with the highest concentration of interferent was serially diluted and measured values compared to theoretical values), comparability (120 patients samples) and cross reactivity (samples with increasing concentrations of interferent were divided in two aliquots and remaining interferents were added in each aliquot.

Dealing with the positive publication bias: Why you should really publish your negative results.

Studies with positive results are greatly more represented in literature than studies with negative results, producing so-called publication bias. This review aims to discuss occurring problems around negative results and to emphasize the importance of reporting negative results. Underreporting of negative results introduces bias into meta-analysis, which consequently misinforms researchers, doctors and policymakers.

ICMJE authorship criteria are not met in a substantial proportion of manuscripts submitted to Biochemia Medica.

Introduction: Our aim was to investigate if: (a) authors of Biochemia Medica meet authorship criteria given by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), (b) authorship violations are more frequent in submissions containing some type of scientific misconduct.

Materials And Methods: Self-reported authorship contributions regarding the three ICMJE criteria were analysed for all submissions to Biochemia Medica (February 2013-April 2015) which were forwarded to peer-review. To test the differences in frequencies we used Chi-squared test.

Biochemia Medica's editorial policy on authorship.

Recent findings of authorship criteria violations in the manuscripts submitted to Biochemia Medica show that almost 40% of authors do not meet necessary criteria for authorship and thus indicate the need for better dissemination of editorial policy on authorship in our journal. We believe that such cases are mostly due to the authors' unawareness or the lack of understanding of the authorship criteria. With this article we therefore wish to declare our editorial policy on authorship and authorship criteria.

Croatian laboratories have a good knowledge of the proper detection and management of hemolyzed, icteric and lipemic samples.

Background: Endogenous interferences are an important source of biased laboratory results. Hemolysis, lipemia and icteria are the main source of endogenous interference in laboratory medicine. Accreditation according to ISO 15189 improves the overall quality of the laboratory procedures.

An Analysis of Medical Laboratory Technology Journals' Instructions for Authors.

Instructions for authors (IFA) need to be informative and regularly updated. We hypothesized that journals with a higher impact factor (IF) have more comprehensive IFA. The aim of the study was to examine whether IFA of journals indexed in the Journal Citation Reports 2013, "Medical Laboratory Technology" category, are written in accordance with the latest recommendations and whether the quality of instructions correlates with the journals' IF.

Influence of a prolonged fasting and mild activity on routine laboratory tests.

Objectives: Despite the standardization of the phlebotomy procedure, blood analysis is occasionally requested after recommended hours with the excuse that the patient is still fasting. We aimed to examine the influence of prolonged fasting and mild physical activity on routine laboratory tests.

Design And Methods: The study was conducted on 30 volunteers (27 female) median age 40y (20-59).

Peer-review policy and guidelines for Biochemia Medica Journal.

Peer review is widely used system for evaluating manuscripts prior to publication. It has been and still is widely used tool for making justified and fair editorial decision. However, the evidence of its efficacy is limited and it has been criticized to be time-consuming, biased, inconsistent, conservative, and open to abuse.

Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine: national recommendations for venous blood sampling.

Phlebotomy is one of the most complex medical procedures in the diagnosis, management and treatment of patients in healthcare. Since laboratory test results are the basis for a large proportion (60-80%) of medical decisions, any error in the phlebotomy process could have serious consequences. In order to minimize the possibility of errors, phlebotomy procedures should be standardised, well-documented and written instructions should be available at every workstation.

Salami publication: definitions and examples.

Salami publication or segmented publication is a distinct form of redundant publication which is usually characterized by similarity of hypothesis, methodology or results but not text similarity. These aspects of publications are not objectively detected by software applications and therefore present a serious threat to publication ethics. This article presents a practical approach for dealing with manuscripts suspected of salami publication during the submission process and after article publication in Biochemia Medica.

Biochemia Medica has started using the CrossCheck plagiarism detection software powered by iThenticate.

In February 2013, Biodhemia Medica has joined CrossRef, which enabled us to implement CrossCheck plagiarism detection service. Therefore, all manuscript submitted to Biodchemia Medica are now first assigned to Research integrity editor (RIE), before sending the manuscript for peer-review. RIE submits the text to CrossCheck analysis and is responsible for reviewing the results of the text similarity analysis.

Patchwork plagiarism--a jigsaw of stolen puzzle pieces.

Plagiarism remains at the top in terms of interest to the scientific community. In its many vicious forms, patchwork plagiarism is characterized by numerous unresolved issues and often passes "below the radar" of editors and reviewers. The problem of detecting the complexity of misconduct has been partially resolved by plagiarism detection software.

Validation of methods performance for routine biochemistry analytes at Cobas 6000 analyzer series module c501.

Introduction: Cobas 6000 (Roche, Germany) is biochemistry analyzer for spectrophotometric, immunoturbidimetric and ion-selective determination of biochemical analytes. Hereby we present analytical validation with emphasis on method performance judgment for routine operation.

Materials And Methods: Validation was made for 30 analytes (metabolites, enzymes, trace elements, specific proteins and electrolytes).

The quality of the extra-analytical phase of laboratory practice in some developing European countries and Mexico - a multicentric study.

Background: This cross-sectional multicentric survey study aimed to assess the quality of the extra-analytical phase of laboratory activities in some developing European countries and Mexico. We assessed the quality of the extra-analytical practices in participating laboratories regarding the: a) sample acceptance criteria; b) phlebotomy procedures; c) test results reporting and d) recording non-conformities.

Methods: A survey was performed during the April-May 2009.