Sin of omissions: When tests fly under the radar
May 2014—“There are known knowns; there are things that we know that we know,” then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously said in response to a question at a 2002 news briefing. “We also know...
View ArticleBilling vendors adopt and adapt to boost clients’ revenue
May 2014—From federal requirements to voluntary standards to back-office activities and business tools, vendors of billing/AR/RCM systems share how they are helping their clients. Beginning on page 16...
View ArticlePressure’s on to halt nosocomial infections
May 2014—Modern health care is more advanced than ever, but institutions continue to battle one problem that refuses to go away: hospital-acquired infections. They should be preventable, yet a recent...
View ArticleSecond act for HER2, in gastric cancers
May 2014—If one were to map out a “family tree” of tumors, breast and gastric cancers might end up looking like second cousins. One is common, the other is not, but it’s rapidly becoming known that...
View ArticleFrom the President’s Desk: Connect to colleagues, ideas at CAP ’14, 5/14
May 2014—The CAP annual meeting is the place to find top-drawer educational opportunities, network with peers, and become a more effective advocate for your practice and your specialty. I’m intent on...
View ArticleChecklist changes put out fire (drills), for starters
May 2014—Gerald Hoeltge, MD, chair of the CAP Checklists Committee, is pretty sure he knows exactly the way many laboratories will react to a particular change in the latest edition of the Laboratory...
View ArticleCytopathology and More | Cytopathology letter: Ignoring recommendations?
May 2014—Recently I received the 2014 CAP PAPM-A (gynecologic pathology) slide set and was surprised to see case No. 5: a Pap test from an 82-year-old woman with a clinical history of “routine exam.”...
View ArticleCytopathology and More | Cytopathology at the tipping point
May 2014—A tipping point implies a point of no return, a monumental change in the status quo, a transformation that leads to a new paradigm. Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point: How Little Things...
View ArticleQ & A Column, 6/14
June 2014—Treatment with rasburicase seems to affect the uric acid analysis. Drawing the specimen in a pre-chilled lithium heparin tube appears to eliminate the falsely low uric acid results we see....
View ArticleNewsbytes, 6/14
June 2014—Making the most of big data no easy task: A trillion base pairs of sequence here, a trillion there. Pretty soon, you’re talking about a lot of information—and it all needs to be managed....
View ArticleUsing molecular techniques to confirm donor-derived post-transplant...
June 2014—Post-transplantation lymphoprolif-erative disorders (PTLD) encompass a spectrum of neoplasms, ranging from benign hyperplasia to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma. Epstein-Barr virus...
View ArticlemicroRNAs entice as diagnostic key to multiple diseases
June 2014—In research and development of diagnostics based on the small, non-coding RNAs known as microRNA, the potential clinical applications in cancer were the first to be explored and have hogged...
View ArticleClinical Pathology Selected Abstracts, 6/14
June 2014—How a single patient influenced HIV research: 15-year followup: The hope of a cure for human immunodeficiency virus infection is raised by recent reports of people in whom viral replication...
View ArticleAnatomic Pathology Selected Abstracts, 6/14
June 2014—Utility of triple antibody cocktail intraurothelial neoplasm-3 and AMACR in urothelial CIS and reactive urothelial atypia: Urothelial carcinoma in situ (CIS) is a prognostically and...
View ArticleNGS to detect oncogenes—sizing panels, reporting results
June 2014—Scientific wonders always abound at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology conference, and this year’s meeting in February was no exception. Attendees had their first opportunity at a...
View ArticleFrom the President’s Desk: With time, greater clarity on HPV screening, 6/14
June 2014—The Food and Drug Administration on April 24 approved use of the Cobas HPV test manufactured by Roche Molecular Systems as a primary standalone screen for cervical cancer in women 25 years...
View ArticleProtecting Access to Medicare ActCAP on rule to implement law: ‘We will be...
June 2014—The CAP’s leaders say they will keep pushing for favorable pathology payment policies as federal regulators implement new legislation that could lead to steep cuts in Medicare rates. Six...
View ArticleCancer biomarker use varies widely, needs a ‘broader view’
June 2014—Despite an explosion of research into cancer biomarkers and professional guidelines that urge testing for certain genetic mutations that help detect disease, anticipate its course, or predict...
View ArticleA question of capital: Will lab purchasing take a U-turn?
June 2014—If they made disaster movies about the laboratory industry, you could cue the voice talent right now, because all the plot elements seem ready at hand. In a world where an economy haltingly...
View ArticlePut it on the Board, 6/14
June 2014—For trainees, information ‘gaps are closing’: With the dismissal of residents from training programs having led to well-known tragedies, the most recent in pathology just a year ago,...
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