AABB ramps up donor screening to help stem TRALI
October 2014—When it comes to the blood supply, the tradeoffs between safety and availability are a tightrope that blood centers walk with extreme care. For several years now, TRALI...
View ArticleClinical Pathology Selected Abstracts, 10/14
October 2014—Benefits of green tea extract to brain connectivity during working memory processing: Green tea extract or its main ingredient has been shown to have a beneficial impact on cognitive...
View ArticleBlood bank systems sport an assortment of solutions
October 2014—From a focus on donor screening to inroads with inventory and tweaks to transfusion functionality, marketers of blood bank information systems and ancillary solutions continue to make...
View ArticleQ & A Column, 10/14
October 2014—My laboratory reports the color of a body fluid after it’s spun down. So bloody fluid may be reported as “color: yellow, appearance = bloody.” Is this common practice? We have had phone...
View ArticleFrom the President’s Desk: Building a quality tradition, 10/14
October 2014—Laboratory medicine is a human endeavor with zero tolerance for error. “Human endeavor” and “zero error” make for an awkward pairing, but those are the rules and they’re good ones. So we...
View ArticleFDA’s LDT proposal means ‘whole new ballgame’ for labs
October 2014—The Food and Drug Administration’s plan to subject many laboratory-developed tests to a new layer of regulatory requirements over the course of the next decade is drawing sharply...
View ArticleNGS bioinformatics pipeline—worries and wish lists: A look at the...
October 2014—Last month the molecular and genomic pathology laboratory of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center posted on the AMP listserv its requirements for a bioinformatics scientist to...
View ArticleQ & A column, 11/14
November 2014—When performing a platelet count from a blood sample collected in a sodium citrate tube, the result is multiplied by 1.1 to correct for the volumetric difference in anticoagulant compared...
View ArticleFrom the President’s Desk: How we tell our story, 11/14
November 2014—We do what we do because we know it’s important, we find it engaging, and we like to keep things interesting. We are committed to our work and precise by nature. So we spend hours with...
View ArticleFrom chaos to order—and compassion—in autopsies
November 2014—Pathology resident Beth Ellen Frost, DO, has at times taken an uncommon step to put family members at ease when they are asked to consent, or have consented, to an autopsy for a loved...
View ArticleCAP proposals on IHC, PQRS accepted for Medicare in ’15
November 2014—The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Oct. 31 published its 2015 Medicare physician fee schedule to set payment rates and policy for the next year, including the relative...
View ArticleIs molecular AP testing in sync with guidelines?
November 2014—Molecular testing, on a steep growth curve in anatomic pathology, is increasingly providing decisive guidance for treatment of cancer patients. But while guidelines on clinical relevance...
View ArticleNGS informatics catching up to clinical demands
November 2014—When Birgit H. Funke, PhD, gave a talk earlier this year on incorporating bioinformatic tools and pipelines into medical NGS, at Molecular Medicine Tri-Con 2014, one of her slides showed...
View ArticleHow LIS tweaks can enhance efficiency, patient safety
November 2014—So, you have a great idea that will improve laboratory workflow and reduce errors? Chances are the change will depend on automation of some sort, and will involve the LIS. But upgrades to...
View ArticleMolecular techniques in a case of concurrent BCR-ABL1–positive CML and CMML
November 2014—CAP TODAY and the Association for Molecular Pathology have teamed up to bring molecular case reports to CAP TODAY readers. Here, this month, is case No. 6. (See the February, August, and...
View ArticleBig gain theory—data warehousing pays off
November 2014—It’s been said that “data” is the plural of “anecdote,” and debate has swirled around whether that is true. Something about data makes most of us feel that it is qualitatively different:...
View ArticleClinical Pathology Selected Abstracts, 11/14
November 2014—Combination of blood tests for fibrosis and cirrhosis to assess liver prognosis in CHC: Newer therapies for chronic hepatitis C are promising due to a high rate of sustained viral...
View ArticleAnatomic Pathology Selected Abstracts, 11/14
November 2014—Final trial report of sentinel-node biopsy versus nodal observation in melanoma: Sentinel-node biopsy, a minimally invasive procedure for regional melanoma staging, was evaluated in a...
View ArticleNewsbytes, 11/14
November 2014—Software expands on ‘what you see is what you get’; ONC unveils tool for sharing health information with patients; Portal gives patients direct access to lab test results; Xifin partners...
View ArticleMolecular Pathology Selected Abstracts, 11/14
November 2014—Whole exome sequencing of Merkel cell carcinoma demonstrates conserved retinoblastoma pathway dysregulation: Merkel cell carcinoma is a rare aggressive neuroendocrine malignancy of the...
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