What is Oncofertility?
Last week, at the annual meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) we heard an impressive presentation by Dr. Teresa Woodruff PhD on “Oncofertility.” Although the topic is a bit removed ...
Predicting Preeclampsia using sFlt-1:PlGF Ratio in Symptomatic Women
Preeclampsia occurs in 5 to 8% of pregnancies and is a major contributor of premature deliveries and neonatal morbidity in the U.S. and worldwide. It is characterized by new onset hypertension and proteinuria a...
An Update on Zika Virus Testing in Pregnant Women
We have previously blogged about Zika virus during pregnancy.That post was in February of 2016 and a lot has changed since then. For one thing, Zika has been shown to be transmitted via sexual contact from...
A second hCG blood test that can be performed at the point-of-care
We have blogged previously about the limitations of urine hCG tests to detect pregnancy in a hospital setting and about the Abbott iSTAT, the first FDA approved device for detection of hCG in whole blood at the...
Placental Alpha-Microglobulin-1 as a Marker of Membrane Rupture
Originally published on The Pregnancy Lab
Premature rupture of membranes (PROM) is spontaneous rupture of fetal membranes before the onset of uterine contractions. Preterm PROM, which is PROM before 37 weeks ...
Zika Virus Testing in Pregnant Women
Zika virus is a mosquito borne illness that is found in South and Central America. The most common symptoms include fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes). The virus is spread by mosquitos prima...
Preventing false negatives in POC pregnancy tests
We have blogged previously (here and here) about false negative results in qualitative point-of-care (POC) hCG devices due to high concentrations of hCGβcf in urine. We have shown that the majority of qualitati...
The Pregnancy Lab: How early can pregnancy be detected?
Originally published by The Pregnancy Lab on October 26, 2015 by Dr. Ann Gronowski “How early can pregnancy be detected?” is a question we are asked all the time. The short answer is, “It depends.” Let’s a...
The Pregnancy Lab: “Should I freeze my eggs?”
Originally published by The Pregnancy Lab on October 5, 2015 by Dr. David Grenache “A question some women face: when to freeze their eggs.” This was the start of a news piece I heard on NPR as I drove to wor...
Personalized Medicine during Pregnancy
Originally published by The Pregnancy Lab on July 28, 2015 by Ann M. Gronowski, Ph.D. Personalized medicine can be defined as customized disease prevention therapies and drug treatment protocols based on k...