LabTalk with Isaac

From our inbox
Good day sir.
How are you doing?
This is one of your followers from Nigeria. I am a Medical Laboratory Technician with just 6 months of working experience. I am so glad to be part of the good work you are doing to keep us updated. God bless you, sir.
Please, does a recipient’s Hb electrophoresis pattern change after transfusion?
A few days ago, a patient in our facility was transfused, and a genotype electrophoresis was carried out. The result showed her Hb pattern as “AC.” The result is being queried by the clinician.

A story I think about every time a couple comes in for premarital screening
This isn’t about one specific couple, it’s a scenario I’ve seen play out in different forms, and one that stays with me every time I run a sickling test for someone about to get married.
Picture this: a couple comes in for premarital testing, the kind of routine screening so many couples do before their wedding, sometimes just to tick a box. The results come back, and both of them are carriers. Sickle cell trait, AS.
You sit them down and explain what that means, that with every pregnancy, there’s a real chance their child could be born with sickle cell disease, not trait, the disease itself. You watch their faces as you say it. And then you watch them push back. They don’t want to hear it. They love each other, they say, and nothing is going to change their plans.
They get married anyway.
Some time later, they come back, this time with their baby. The child has sickle cell disease.
I’ve sat across from families in that exact moment, or close enough to it, more than once in this profession. Not always with the same details, but always with the same weight in the room. Two parents holding a child they love completely, now facing a lifetime of pain crises, hospital visits, and a diagnosis that could have been known and planned for before it ever began.
There’s no satisfaction in a lab scientist being “right” about a result like that. Only a quiet heaviness, and a wish that the conversation had gone differently before the wedding, not after the birth.
This is why I keep telling people, gently but firmly: premarital screening is not there to break up your relationship. It’s there to give you the full picture before you build a life together, so that whatever you decide, you decide it with open eyes.
Know your status. Know your partner’s status. Talk to a genetic counsellor if you’re both carriers. Love each other, yes, but let that love be informed, not blind.
Please, get screened before marriage. Not because something is wrong with you, but because your future children deserve parents who knew, and chose, with full understanding. ❤️

A patient came for TB testing. The sputum AFB smear microscopy came positive. I then run a GeneXpert MTB/RIF to confirm, but the result was negative for M. tuberculosis.
I repeat both tests. Same result: smear positive, GeneXpert negative.
As a Medical Laboratory Scientist or Technician, what would you do next?
Let’s discuss the correct laboratory approach. Share your answer in the comments! 👇