FEATURE ARTICLES

The era of diagnoses based on incomplete datasets is at an end, Here, Dr Brendan Devlin explains why the ‘ologies’ must be connected and what integrated diagnostics is actually about.

The fight against antimicrobial resistance is so important that it is the subject of the 21st-century equivalent of the Longitude Prize. Here, Sarah Wallis puts current commercial issues and developments into context.

Delegates from across the NHS pathology spectrum attended the annual national information technology conference, staged earlier in the year by CliniSys at The Belfry in the West Midlands. Donald Saum reports.

Sarah Davis and colleagues at Birmingham Women’s Hospital are using the MacroVIEW DM system from Menarini Diagnostics. Here, they report on how the system has revolutionised routine mortuary practice.

Anna Finuliar and Alison Hadfield examine the laboratory methods in use to quantify and differentiate cells in body fluids, and assess the value of automation in routine practice.

The TSH receptor is a primary antigen in Graves' disease hyperthyroidism, and the presence of TSH-R-specific antibodies are indicative of the condition. Recently, automated assays measuring these antibodies have proved useful in diagnosis, as this article explains.

Gill Eyre speaks to Pathology in Practice about company successes and how far Stago has developed since it first opened in the UK over 10 years ago.

The next in this series of articles on individual aspects of the assessment of uncertainty of measurement sees Stephen MacDonald consider the role of internal quality control, the most commonly used method, and provides some examples in straightforward assays.

Laboratory Incidents Specialist Hema Mistry summarises the 2016 SHOT Annual Report and looks at why the same errors are still occurring, and why many of them could have been prevented.

The committee of the British Society for Microbial Technology reports from its annual scientific meeting, held earlier in the year at PHE Colindale in London.

Next month, the International Convention Centre in Birmingham will host one of the largest gatherings of biomedical and life science companies held anywhere in the world. The following selection of brief exhibitor previews provides a taste of what IBMS Biomedical Science Congress delegates and visitors may find to interest them on individual stands in the exhibition.

Support for antimicrobial susceptibility methodology is changing, and laboratories face testing times in this important area of practice. Here, Andrew Ferguson and Rahila Chaudhry assess different approaches.

Multidrug resistance exhibited by a range of microorganisms is a growing problem, a prime example being that resulting from carbapenemase production. Here, Gemma Vanstone and colleagues assess the value of the RESIST-3 O.K.N. lateral-flow immunochromatography assay.

Since the introduction of the ISAC microarray more than a decade ago, an increasing number of allergist and other specialists have made use of its broad and detailed sensitisation profiles, as this overview from Thermo Fisher Scientific illustrates.

Pathology and cancer leaders from the UK and across Europe met in London in May at a Philips Digital Pathology Workshop to learn how a Lean-based business tool can be used to build the case for digital pathology.

The external quality assessment of point-of-care testing (POCT) has not been a prominent feature of coverage in the literature over the past decade or more, as the examples highlighted below demonstrate. However, with the ever-increasing application of POCT in modern clinical medicine, this is an area of quality management that requires attention.

Faecal immunochemical testing is a fairly recent advance in the screening of patients for inflammatory bowel disease or colorectal cancer. Success in Scotland has shown that implementation of FIT can reduce the number of unnecessary colonoscopies, as Judith Strachan explains.

With publication of the final part of Stago’s DiET study into venous thromboembolism, Laurence Loï considers the role of D-dimer testing when clinicians are faced with elderly patients in the emergency setting.

Next month the twelfth in the biennial Congress series will return to the International Convention Centre in Birmingham, and the focus once again will be on the very best that biomedical science and commercial colleagues have to offer. Here, Pathology in Practice provides a brief overview of the four-day event.

Although the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has issued a warning that the last line of antibiotics is failing, there are encouraging signs that antibiotic stewardship is improving, with healthcare and veterinary professionals making positive changes in prescribing practice.