Evaluation of the Stratus CS fluorometer for the determination of plasma myoglobin.

Circulating myoglobin is recognized as an early and sensitive marker of acute coronary diseases. Long turnaround time of myoglobin assays jeopardize their clinical utility. We evaluated the analytical performance of the Stratus CS fluorometric enzyme immunoassay based on dendrimer technology, and claimed to achieve a fast and reliable determination of plasma myoglobin concentrations. Precision complied with the recommended analytical performance criteria. Method comparison and recovery experiments indicated, that despite good between-method correlations, the Stratus CS method overestimated myoglobin concentrations in comparison with values obtained on Cobas Integra 400 and BN A. However, since the manufacturers' cut-off for elevated plasma myoglobin levels was higher for Stratus CS than for other techniques, few discrepant results were observed between methods. Elevated levels of hemoglobin, triglycerides and rheumatoid factors did not interfere in the Stratus CS method but hyperbilirubinemia caused a positive difference.

Epidemiology of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The added value of diabetes registries for conducting clinical studies: the Belgian paradigm.

Diabetes registries have documented that the lifetime risk of diabetes amounts to at least 10% in the western world. Moreover the prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing worldwide especially in developing countries. Furthermore there is a secular trend toward earlier clinical manifestation of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. In the absence of a permanent cure for primary diabetes the present estimated number of at least 150 million diabetic patients worldwide is expected to double within the next 20 years. Consequently a sharp increase in the global burden of chronic diabetes complications is to be feared in the coming decades. Therefore it is absolutely mandatory to intensify research efforts aiming at identifying the etiological factors involved and designing effective strategies for prediction and prevention of the disease and its devastating complications. Diabetes registries constitute instruments of choice to conduct such studies because they are able to collect standardised clinical, demographic and biological information from sufficiently large representative groups of patients and risk groups such as first degree relatives. Since 1989, the Belgian Diabetes Registry is studying all types of diabetes presenting before age 40 in Belgium and provides a paradigm of how diabetes registries may also contribute to the advancement of knowledge on disease heterogeneity, etiology, prediction and prevention.