Thyroid group poster ranks third at convention
Jerald Nelson, MD, professor of medicine and pathology, School of Medicine, presented a paper titled "Diagnostic Thresholds and Predictive Values in the Application of TSH First Testing to the Diagnosis of Hyperthyroidism and Primary Hypothyroidism" in July at the annual meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry in Atlanta.
Dr. Nelson's co-authors were Anthony F. Firek, MD, assistant professor of medicine, School of Medicine; Grenith J. Zimmerman, PhD, professor of biostatistics, School of Allied Health Professions; J. Lamont Murdoch, MD, professor of medicine, School of Medicine; and R. Bruce Wilcox, PhD, professor of biochemistry, School of Medicine.
The paper reported five years of research by the thyroid study group concerning TSH testing, and described a more efficient way of using thyroid testing which can reduce the cost while increasing the accuracy. Out of 817 papers submitted for presentation, Loma Linda's ranked third. Though the status of the presentations was not publicly announced, the three best papers were highlighted in the AACC journal, Clinical Laboratory News.
"Essentially, TSH testing by primary care physicians has generated substantial numbers of abnormal TSH results in healthy individuals. Information about positive and negative predictive values of TSH first testing would be helpful in interpreting these results," says Dr. Nelson.
The Thyroid Study Group at Loma Linda University Medical Center has been primarily concerned with studying how the pituitary gland regulates the thyroid glands under "unusual circumstances"--conditions of the human body that are somewhat out of the ordinary such as infant prematurity, pregnancy, and adult non-thyroidal illness.
The project was displayed in a poster/booth format, where those who were interested could examine the work and then discuss it with Dr. Nelson.
[Scope, Autumn '97 contents]
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