FEATURE ARTICLES

SHOT laboratory incident specialist Victoria Tuckley summarises the 2019 Annual Report, and highlights why it is vital to look beyond the individual, their actions and the assignment of blame or deficiency for improvements in safety to be made.

A recent report, commissioned by Pumping Marvellous and Roche, provided surprising statistics on the diagnosis of heart failure. Carly Schott discusses key findings and the pivotal role laboratories play in the patient pathway.

Long-standing Stago UK customers are pioneering key elements of the company’s My Quality Solutions package as part of their comprehensive laboratory quality control requirements, as illustrated by examples from three hospital sites.

Interferon- γ-inducible protein (IP)-10 is a small glycoprotein member of a family of chemotactic cytokines structurally related to interleukin-8. Its value as a marker of disease severity is now finding application in COVID-19.

The idiom ‘to leave no stone unturned’ means to do everything possible to find something or to solve a problem. Here, Guy Orchard and colleagues apply this approach in the search for an alternative mordant for use in a new haematoxylin solution.

Public Health England is to be replaced by the National Institute for Health Protection; this came as a shock to those working in public health, and to observers with long experience of the service. Valerie Bevan provides an individual assessment.

From the laboratory to the layperson, from pathologists to the public, the response to in vitro diagnostic testing has been engaging across all sectors of society during the current pandemic. Chris Hudson provides a view on the reaction from Roche.

Following series on measurement uncertainty and internal quality control, Stephen MacDonald now turns his attention to method comparison, and here provides an introduction to what will be covered in the series in subsequent issues of the magazine.

The Annual Scientific Conference of the BSMT, due to take place last May, was cancelled. In this article, written on behalf of the BSMT, Mark Wilks collaborates with Adela Medina to summarise the presentation she planned to give at the event.

While still over 12 months away, the Biomedical Science Congress is currently exercising the minds and the ingenuity of the organisers of this biennial event, as IBMS Deputy Chief Executive Sarah May explains.

A recent white paper published by Epredia examined the effective use of formalin fixation in the molecular study of tumour biomarkers, and included the results of a case study of three non-small-cell lung carcinomas of adenocarcinoma subtype.

An award-winning NHS partnership – South West London Pathology – recently installed DxH 900 haematology workcells from Beckman Coulter to enable its laboratories to provide a single, integrated pathology service to more than 3.5 million people.

At Infection Prevention and Control 2020, held in February, NHS leaders warned that increased efforts are required to reduce healthcare-associated infections, if we are to conquer the threat posed by antimicrobial resistance. Louise Frampton reports.

The mortality rate for breast cancer has fallen dramatically. The latest research offers hope for further improvements, not least through the introduction of highly sensitive blood tests and the innovative use of new and existing treatments.

Diverse use of next-generation sequencing in histopathology and microbiology feature in the current issue; however, this molecular methodology is becoming ubiquitous across a wide range of clinical and laboratory applications.

Mandy Campbell from HORIBA Medical provides an overview of COVID-19 screening, prognosis and severity assessment, with a particular focus on the role of biomarkers and the value of point-of-care testing in the initial triage of patients.

The recent coronavirus pandemic has clearly demonstrated the importance of remote working. This is reflected in the value of Stago’s data-sharing and instrument monitoring systems, highlighted in positive results obtained from a customer survey.

Safely easing restrictions will require the development of extensive diagnostic capabilities, including rapid tests for use at the point of care. Andy Lane explains the role that diagnostics play and the importance high-quality reagents.

Against the ever-changing landscape of SARS-CoV-2 testing and an emerging need for sample storage, Mark Reed and Charlotte Duncan from Pro-Lab discuss a solution currently being adopted across the UK.

As a result of current restrictions, this year’s UK NEQAS BC annual scientific and scheme participants’ meeting was cancelled. Here, Ian Jennings, Dianne Kitchen and Anna Lowe are able to use Pathology in Practice to report.