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September 2015

At the AACC Show 2015

September 2015—This year’s meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry saw soaring temperatures in the host city of Atlanta and a lofty number of attendees. Nearly 18,000 laboratory professionals took part in the five-day extravaganza, which featured hundreds of educational sessions and poster presentations, along with 720 exhibitors that filled the expo floor. A selection of company news released at the meeting is included in this special section.

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Q&A column, 9/15

September 2015—In the article on novel oral anticoagulants in the May 2015 issue of Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine (139:687–692), a few blood products that are mentioned are not described. What is the composition of 3-factor PCC, 4-factor PCC, and FEIBA, and how are they prepared commercially?

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Molecular Pathology Selected Abstracts, 9/15

September 2015—Molecular profile of diffuse lower-grade gliomas: Diffuse low- and intermediate-grade gliomas include World Health Organization grade II and III astrocytomas, oligodendrogliomas, and oligoastrocytomas. These lower-grade gliomas usually arise in the cerebral hemispheres of adults, and they are highly infiltrative and, therefore, cannot be completely resected.

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Clinical Pathology Abstracts, 9/15

September 2015—Costs and outcomes after cardiac surgery in patients refusing transfusion: Numerous randomized, controlled trials have shown no benefit of a liberal blood transfusion strategy compared with a more restrictive strategy in surgical patients. Furthermore, concerns exist regarding the association of transfusion with postoperative morbidity and mortality.

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Newsbytes, 9/15

September 2015—How site visits led to an LIS selection at Stanford: Seven gets all the attention, but five turned out to be the lucky number for a Stanford University Medical Center team charged with selecting a new laboratory information system. Visiting five installation sites in five cities in five days was “probably the most important aspect of the whole process,” says Brent Tan, MD, PhD, director of clinical laboratory informatics at Stanford.

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Put It on the Board, 9/15

September 2015—Roche buys ‘sample in, susceptibility out’ technology: Roche has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Los Gatos, Calif.-based GeneWeave BioSciences, a privately held company focused on molecular clinical microbiology diagnostic solutions. The acquisition provides Roche with GeneWeave’s Smarticles technology, which quickly identifies multidrug-resistant organisms and assesses antimicrobial susceptibility directly from clinical samples without the need for traditional enrichment, culture, or sample preparation processes.

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Anatomic Pathology Abstracts, 9/15

September 2015—Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in select breast cancers: Modulation of immunologic interactions in cancer tissue is a promising therapeutic strategy. To investigate the immunogenicity of HER2-positive and triple-negative breast cancers, the authors evaluated tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and immunologically relevant genes in the neoadjuvant GeparSixto trial.

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Delta checks as safety net: how used, how useful?

September 2015—There was a time when Michael L. Talbert, MD, didn’t spend much time thinking about delta checks in his laboratory. “I would periodically look at them, but I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into ranges or into which analytes were most efficient or effective,” says Dr. Talbert, who is chair of pathology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and chief of service and medical director of pathology and laboratory services at OU Medical System, Oklahoma City.

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In vivo microscopy checklist ready when labs are

September 2015—Why issue accreditation requirements for a technology before it’s seen widespread adoption? For the same reason you close the barn door before the horse has wandered out. At least that’s the view of Maria M. Shevchuk, MD, who, as chair of the CAP’s In Vivo Microscopy Committee, helped develop the new in vivo microscopy section of the Laboratory Accreditation Program’s 2015 anatomic pathology checklist.

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Unusual transplant-linked viral infections: ‘always be aware’

September 2015—Emerging and re-emerging viruses are well and alive, says Sherif Zaki, MD, PhD, chief of the Infectious Diseases Pathology Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the Clinical Virology Symposium in April, he spoke on viral etiology in unexpected deaths, presenting a list of outbreaks of unexplained illnesses in which his branch took part in the past two decades and which turned out to be caused by viruses.

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Trials show no benefit from fresher red cells

September 2015—Whether transfusion recipients are better off receiving fresher red blood cells has probably been the most pressing and controversial question in blood banking in the past several years. So much so that enormous randomized, prospective trials involving patients in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, and Africa have been comparing outcomes from RBC units of different duration in a variety of patient subpopulations.

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From the President’s Desk: Partnerships for patients

September 2015—This is my last column, so the bad news is that it’s time to go. But the good news is that by the time you read this, we’ll be heading into CAP ’15, where many of us will continue this conversation in person. If you cannot come this year, I hope you will at least plan lunch afterward with someone who did. We always return to work infused with energy and optimism. At least you can tap into that.

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Integrating AP and radiology, inch by inch

September 2015—Two major specialties serve all of health care as the foundation for diagnosis. Now efforts to align pathology and radiology again appear to be picking up steam. As payment shifts to so-called value-based care and as medical record systems may challenge successful test interpretation, many experts seek a clear integration of these two specialties.

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