Acute leukemias are oncohematological diseases that compromise the bone marrow and have a complex diagnostic definition, leading to a high mortality when diagnosed late. This study proposed to determine the spectral differences between whole blood and plasma samples of healthy and leukemic subjects based on Raman spectroscopy (RS), correlating these differences with their resulting biochemical alterations and performing discriminant analysis of the samples (n ¼ 38 whole blood and n ¼ 40 plasma samples). Raman spectra were obtained using a dispersive Raman spectrometer (830-nm wavelength, 280-mW laser power, 30-s exposure time) with a Raman probe. The exploratory analysis based on principal component analysis (PCA) of the blood and plasma sample's spectra showed loading vectors with peaks related to amino acids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and carotenoids, being the spectral differences related to amino acids and proteins for whole blood samples, and mainly carotenoids for plasma samples. Discriminant models based on partial least squares (PLS) and PCA were developed and classified the spectra as healthy or leukemic, with sensitivity of 91.9% (PLS) and 83.9% (PCA), specificity of 100% (both PLS and PCA), and overall accuracy of 96.5% (PLS) and 93.0% (PCA) for the whole blood spectra. In plasma, the sensitivity was 95.7% (PLS) and 11.6% (PCA), specificity of 98% (PLS) and 100% (PCA), and overall accuracy of 97.1% (PLS) and 64.1% (PCA). The study demonstrated that RS is a technique with potential to be applied in the diagnosis of acute leukemias in whole blood samples.

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ObjectiveTo demonstrate the proportion of anemia and its association with demographic and clinical characteristics in a representative sample of elderly people from São José dos Campos, São Paulo.MethodsDemographic data and blood samples were collected from 398 over 65-year-old male and female individuals. Anemia was defined as hemoglobin concentration <12 g/dL in women and <13 g/dL in men. Anemic and non-anemic groups were compared using the chi-squared test and a multiple logistic regression model.ResultsThe prevalence of anemia was 18.6% (20.8% in men and 17.6% in women). The percentages of anemia rose significantly across the age groups >75–80, >85–90 and >90–95 years (p-value = 0.0251). There were no significant differences in gender, ethnic background, place of residence, years of schooling, income, comorbidities and use of medications. According to gender, the mean hemoglobin concentration and mean corpuscular volume were 11.5 g/dL (range: 8.4–11.9 g/dL) and 90.7 fL (range: 63.0–111.7 fL) for women and 11.9 g/dL (range: 8.6–12.8 g/dL) and 92.1 fL (range: 59.8–100.1 fL) for men. The great majority of anemia cases were mild with less than 6% having hemoglobin concentrations below 10.9 g/dL. Mean corpuscular volume was lower than 80 fL in six cases (8%), between 80 and 100 fL in 65 cases (88%) and higher than 100 fL in three cases (4%).ConclusionA total of 18.6% of elderly people from São José dos Campos had mild anemia with the majority being normocytic. The percentages of anemia rose as the age increased demonstrating an association between age and anemia.

DESCRITORES Diagnóstico. Hipotireoidismo. Idosos ABSTRACT Objective:To determine the prevalence of hypothyroidism among elderlies aged over 60 years from the city of Taubaté, SP, Brazil. Material and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study in which we collected information on blood sample results from 200 subjects randomly selected from a private laboratory. The study subjects were selected by rotation among the eligible patients, being both males and females aged over 60 years, living in the city of Taubaté, SP, from June 1 st to October 30 th 2014. The IMMULITE -SIEMENS device was used, along with the following SIEMENS kits: Free T4 kit -Immulite Free T4, which is a chemoluminescent competitive immune-assay. Reference values: 0.89 to 1.76 (ng/dL); and the TSH kit -Immulite TSH, which is based on an immuneassay. Reference values: 0.4 to 4 uIU/mL. The results of TSH above the reference value and of the free T4 below the reference value were considered as indicatives of clinical hypothyroidism. Results: The prevalence of hypothyroidism was found to be 26.5% (53 subjects), of which 73.58% (39 subjects) showed subclinical hypothyroidism and 28.30% (14 subjects) showed clinical hypothyroidism. The incidence of subclinical and clinical hypothyroidism in women was 52.83% and 16.98%, respectively. In men, the incidence of subclinical hypothyroidism was 20.75%, while clinical hypothyroidism accounted for 9.43% of the cases. Conclusion: Our findings showed a high prevalence of hypothyroidism in the studied sample.

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