Hematology is a branch of medicine concerning the study of blood, the blood-forming organs, and blood diseases. The word "heme" comes from the Greek for blood.
Scope of hematology
Hematology is practised by specialists in the field who deal with the diagnosis, treatment and overall management of people with blood disorders ranging from anemia to blood cancer.
Some of the diseases treated by haematologists include:
Iron deficiency anaemia and other types of anemia such as sickle cell or trauma-related anemia.
Polycythemia or excess production of red blood cells.
Myelofibrosis.
Leukemia.
Platelet and bleeding disorders such as hemophilia, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and Von Willebrand disease.
The myelodysplastic syndromes.
Hemoglobinopathies such as thalassemia and sickle cell disease.
Multiple myeloma.
Malignant lymphomas.
Blood transfusion.
Bone marrow stem cell transplantation.
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Clinical chemistry uses chemical processes to measure levels of chemical components in body fluids. The most common specimens tested in clinical chemistry are blood and urine. Many different tests exist to test for almost any type of chemical component in blood or urine. Components may include blood glucose, electrolytes, enzymes, hormones, lipids (fats), other metabolic substances, and proteins.
What are some common clinical chemistry tests?
The following is a description of some of the most common clinical chemistry tests (used on blood and urine specimens), including some of the uses and indications:
Blood glucose, or blood sugar, levels indicate how the body handles glucose. Measuring glucose levels after fasting (when the patient has not eaten anything for 8 hours) can help diagnose diabetes or hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).
Electrolytes include sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate, calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium. Measuring electrolytes can specifically indicate certain metabolic and kidney disorders.
Enzymes are released into the blood by organs that are damaged or diseased.
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The purpose of an immunoassay is to measure (or, in a qualitative assay, to detect) an analyte. Immunoassay is the method of choice for measuring analytes normally present at very low concentrations that cannot be determined accurately by other less expensive tests. Common uses include measurement of drugs, hormones, specific proteins, tumor markers, and markers of cardiac injury. Qualitative immunoassays are often used to detect antigens on infectious agents and antibodies that the body produces to fight them.
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To understand serologic tests and why they’re useful, it’s helpful to know a little about the immune system and why we get sick.
Antigens are substances that provoke a response from the immune system. They are most often too small to see with the naked eye. They can enter the human body through the mouth, through broken skin, or through the nasal passages. Antigens that commonly affect people include the following:
bacteria
fungi
viruses
parasites
The immune system defends against antigens by producing antibodies. These antibodies are particles that attach to the antigens and deactivate them. When your doctor tests your blood, they can identify the type of antibodies and antigens that are in your blood sample and identify the type of infection you have.
Sometimes the body mistakes its own healthy tissue for outside invaders and produces unnecessary antibodies. This is known as an autoimmune disorder. Serologic testing can detect these antibodies to help your doctor diagnose an autoimmune disorder.
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Perhaps the best known aspect of the importance of parasites is the role that they play in causing human disease. For example, hundreds of millions of people suffer from malaria and each year over one million human deaths are caused by this parasitic disease.
Diseases caused by many species of parasitic worms, blood flukes, tapeworms, hookworms, and others are still scourges of mankind. Insect parasites such as fleas and lice are, at best, annoyances to man, and as vectors of diseases like bubonic plague and typhus have been responsible for uncountable human mortality. Mosquitoes not only transmit malaria, but spread yellow fever, encephalitis, and other viral diseases, and are responsible for inoculating into humans several species of filarial worms that cause some of the most horrific diseases in the medical literature. Emerging diseases such as Lyme disease, transmitted by ticks are increasingly recognized as significant to human health.
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A major contribution of microbiology has been learning the role of microbes in disease. It is now known that bacteria cause diseases such as plague, tuberculosis, and anthrax; protozoans cause diseases such as malaria, sleeping sickness, and toxoplasmosis; fungi cause diseases such as ringworm, candidiasis, and histoplasmosis; and viruses cause diseases such as influenza and yellow fever. Host-parasite relationships have been worked out, such as understanding that Plasmodium (cause of malaria) utilizes Anopheles mosquitoes in transmission; some Trypanosoma species (cause of African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, and Chagas disease, or South American trypanosomiasis) utilize the tsetse fly or conenose bugs; and Leishmania (cause of lieshmania) is carried by sand flies. Because of these findings, microbiologists have been able to develop antibiotics and vaccines, and the public has become aware of the importance of hygiene and means to avoid insect vectors (repellents, mosquito nets, etc.).
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The main use of histopathology is in clinical medicine where it typically involves the examination of a biopsy (i.e. a surgically removed sample or specimen taken from a patient for the purposes of detailed study) by a specialist physician called a pathologist.
Specific pieces of tissue or biopsies are taken that are associated with the condition under investigation and sent to the laboratory, usually in a fixative solution to prevent degradation of the tissue, so that when the microscopical examination of the tissue is made, it resembles the state of the tissue as close as possible to what it was when still within the patient.
Diseases such as inflammatory diseases, benign abnormal growth, infections and cancer are diagnosed by this method.
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