Home >> ALL ISSUES >> 2017 Issues >> March 2017

March 2017

New rays on blood safety

March 2017—The language of blood banking experts, as they talk about irradiators, transfers easily to a car dealership. How reliable are the newer models? Are you willing to replace it every 10 years or so? Do you keep running it until it dies? What parts are likely to burn out? What will repairs run? And then the word “terrorism” pops up.

Read More »

Cell-free DNA screening blooms in expansion to low-risk pregnancies

March 2017—Something about having the letters “DNA” in a test’s name may make the test seem like the last word, the key to a black-and-white, definitive diagnosis. That connotation has been problematic for cell-free DNA sequencing used for noninvasive prenatal testing, because the test is not intended or designed for diagnosis, but only for screening. It’s for that reason, in fact, that some maternal-fetal medicine specialists and clinical geneticists prefer to use the term “noninvasive prenatal screening,” with the acronym NIPS.

Read More »

From the President’s Desk: We all need a safe place, 3/17

March 2017—Students of history tell us that a durable paradigm shift most often involves a long gestation, typically under the radar and recognized by a precious few. What they frequently fail to tell us is that the vast majority of prognosticators often turn out to be both flat-out wrong and invisible when the “future” arrives. Either way, however, the prevailing narrative points to uncertainty in the greater health care environment.

Read More »

HbA1c in CVD treatment: farewell to one size fits all

March 2017—Anchor. Central pillar. Cornerstone. It would be hard to find a weighty synonym for “linchpin” that hasn’t been used to describe HbA1c’s role in diabetes diagnosis and management since 2010, when the assay was recognized by key standard-setting organizations as the equal of fasting glucose and oral glucose tolerance testing in diabetes and prediabetes testing.

Read More »

Clinical Pathology Abstracts, 3/17

February 2017—Preventing genetic testing order errors via a lab utilization management program: Diagnostic errors, or failure to provide an accurate and timely diagnosis, impact an estimated 12 million outpatient care visits annually in the United States. These errors can often be attributed to the testing process, including test selection, ordering, retrieval, and interpretation. Literature about diagnostic errors has primarily focused on the outpatient setting; study of diagnostic error in the inpatient setting has been limited.

Read More »

Anatomic Pathology Abstracts, 3/17

March 2017—An immunohistochemical algorithm for ovarian carcinoma typing: Five major histotypes of ovarian carcinoma exist. Diagnostic typing criteria have evolved over time, and past cohorts may be misclassified by current standards. The authors undertook an endeavor to reclassify the recently assembled Canadian Ovarian Experimental Unified Resource and Alberta Ovarian Tumor Type cohorts using immunohistochemical (IHC) biomarkers and to develop an IHC algorithm for ovarian carcinoma histotyping.

Read More »

Molecular Pathology Abstracts, 3/17

March 2017—Effects of ovarian cancer cells manipulating mesothelial cells that line the peritoneal cavity: spread within the peritoneal cavity, resulting in cell implantation and metastasis at many secondary sites. The peritoneal cavity and associated organs are lined by a single layer of mesothelial cells that it has been suggested not only provides a physical barrier to prevent implantation and invasion but also plays a more complex interactive role in regulating cancer spread.

Read More »

Newsbytes, 3/17

March 2017—Pathologist to ‘name names’ in support of interoperability: Desperate times call for desperate measures. And while desperation may be a bit of an overstatement, a leader in pathology informatics says extreme frustration with LIS vendors, whose closed architecture, in effect, holds client data hostage, drove him to rally his colleagues to call out the offenders in a public forum.

Read More »

Q&A column, 3/17

March 2017—Our hospital system is implementing Sysmex instruments with a focus on the accuracy of the absolute white blood cell values—use of the absolute neutrophil count and immature granulocytes with the WBC as markers for septicemia. I then became aware that the hospital purchased the St. John Sepsis v14 protocol, which lists 10 percent bands as one of the markers for septicemia. The Rumke for 10 percent is 4–16. Using bands is not consistent with reducing manual differentials and is not an accurate parameter to use. Are there other protocols using WBC/ANC?

Read More »

Put It on the Board, 3/17

March 2017—LabCorp to acquire PAML: LabCorp, Providence Health & Services, and Catholic Health Initiatives announced Feb. 23 they have entered into a definitive agreement for LabCorp to acquire all of the ownership interest in Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories, LLC, which is owned by Providence and CHI.

Read More »

Latest TB testing guide set forth by ATS, CDC, IDSA

March 2017—Testing for latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and active tuberculosis disease remained relatively unchanged for many years. Screening for latent infection depended on an initial positive tuberculin skin test, and evidence for active TB required a positive culture for M. tuberculosis complex. New tests altered this picture in the past five years. For diagnosis of latent infection, interferon-gamma release assays have taken a major role. And nucleic acid amplification testing is becoming a mainstay for establishing a diagnosis of TB.

Read More »
CAP TODAY
X