Lab testing provides doctors with essential information to help them diagnose and treat disease. Here’s what happens behind the scenes after you roll up your sleeve for a blood draw.
A number of multicancer early detection tests are currently in development.
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Multicancer early detection tests are among the priorities of the Biden administration’s Cancer Moonshot. The tests show promise, but questions remain about when and how to use them.
Researchers can test blood samples taken for other reasons to see if patients have previously had COVID-19.
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Your blood can hold a record of past illnesses. That information can reveal how many people have had a certain infection – like 58% of Americans having had COVID-19 by the end of February 2022.
This device will provide results in a matter of minutes – while regular blood test results could take days or weeks.
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Proposals in NSW to force someone who spits at or bites a frontline worker to be tested for HIV and other blood-borne viruses are a real problem - for workers and the public.
Cancerous tumours release DNA that can be found in the bloodstream.
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Expanding coronavirus testing is one of the most important tasks public health officials are tackling right now. But questions over accuracy of the two main types of tests have rightly caused concern.
The science is far from certain, but it appears at least a proportion of people who have had COVID-19 will be protected from another infection – at least initially.
Testing blood provides answers about who has been infected.
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After your body fights off an infection, antibodies remain in your blood. Two researchers explain how tests identify these antibodies and what the data can be used for.
Jeanne Tie, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
We have no reliable way of knowing which patients’ cancer will return after surgery, so often chemotherapy is given to mop up any remaining cancer cells that may have gone undetected.
Blood can tell us a lot about our health.
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Researchers have discovered some blood markers that indicate melanoma. Here’s what has to happen for the test to reach clinics.
There are real consequences to ignoring children’s pain in hospital. These include increased sensitivity to pain, abnormal social behaviours when older and higher levels of anxiety before a future procedure.
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From broken limbs to blood tests, hospital visits can cause unnecessary pain for children. An emergency care pediatrician offers seven easy strategies for parents to lessen this pain.
No, not that type of iron overload – haemochromatosis, when your body absorbs too much iron.
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Antibiotics are wrongly being prescribed for infections where they won’t work and cutting this down could help combat resistance. But change isn’t as easy as just providing the means.
Patient and doctor in hospital room.
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Almost half of all needle sticks in a hospital may be unnecessary, a recent study shows. There’s a way to be done with one, thus avoiding the pain of extra sticks.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
Sexual health physician, epidemiologist, researcher. (President-elect and vice-president Australasian Society of HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine), UNSW Sydney