FEATURE ARTICLES

Building on the success of last year’s Siemens Academy meeting, the 2010 three-day gathering of over 200 managers and biomedical scientists from the UK and Ireland took place in Manchester. Achieving efficiencies and productivity in times of change was the theme.

Personalised healthcare, the tailored treatment of a patient based on genetic make-up, is moving away from the research laboratory into mainstream medicine. Here, Jane Theaker, Jennifer Lewis and Marc Egelhofer look at progress so far.

Eighteen months on from the acquisition of Olympus by Beckman Coulter, Pathology in Practice spoke to marketing manager Leanne Annereau, a senior manager who came from Olympus to the newly expanded company.

The field of cytogenetics has undergone significant change over the past few years. The rapid development of microarrays has meant that traditional techniques are now taking a subsidiary role in the detection of chromosomal abnormalities to array comparative genome hybridisation for constitutional disorders.

Outbreaks of so-called winter vomiting disease, caused by norovirus, have a significant impact on health services at a time when they are least able to bear the strain. Now, rapid diagnostics from R-Biopharm Rhône have come to the rescue.

Requesting tests from pathology departments based at Barnsley and Rotherham District General Hospitals, South Yorkshire, has been revolutionised by new order-communications software. Sunquest's Integrated Clinical Environment (ICE) system eliminates delays when booking in samples, optimises workflow and improves information gathering on patient samples.

Micropix is an independent microscope and associated accessories vendor. As such, it has expertise in the hardware it sells, as a professional microscope system can be customised in hundreds of ways. However, there are some basic principles of microscopy that can be applied across a range of applications, and this article aims to give an insight into how to maximise the performance of your current microscope equipment and what to look for when purchasing new systems. It will also explore what Micropix considers to be the two most significant innovations in microscopy over the past few years, and these are light-emitting diode (LED) illumination and the digital microscope camera.

A Roche Managed Laboratory Service is predicted to save Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust at least £2.5million over next seven years, and provide half a million people with enhanced pathology services.

The past 12 months have been busy for R-Biopharm Rhône, following the opening of its new facility in Scotland. Here, Pathology in Practice reports on a relative newcomer to microbiology.

The Beckman Coulter approach to Lean processing is beginning to deliver productivity and safety benefits throughout pathology, as Michelle Normington explains. Introducing Lean principles into the hospital laboratory can increase speed, efficiency and quality. The system offers a very practical approach to identifying and eliminating waste, described by the Japanese term ‘muda’. Originally developed for Toyota to improve manufacturing processes, the principles have evolved into a powerful system that can be applied to pathology services worldwide.

Many immunohistochemistry methods for HER2 oncoprotein expression are semi-automated, but introduction of manual steps can lead to variability and unnecessary confirmatory testing. Here, Anthony Gledhill, discusses the implementation of a fully automated test kit that offers the laboratory a more reliable and consistent screening method.

A short period of diarrhoea following foreign travel from which one recovers reasonably quickly, is often dismissed as “something I ate”. However, some infections are waterborne diseases and can require hospitalisation or may prove fatal in the immunocompromised. Here, Michelle Holland looks at Giardia and Cryptosporidium.

Space travel was the theme of the recent annual Ortho Clinical Diagnostics immunohaematology user meeting held, at the National Space Centre in Leicester. Pathology in Practice reports on a close encounter of the transfusion kind.

As Sterilin celebrates its 50th birthday, Alison Smith looks back at the company’s strong pioneering heritage in the field of single-use laboratory disposables and how this has provided the perfect springboard for the future.

Over recent years the boundaries between pathology disciplines has become blurred, with virology being an excellent example of the benefits of shared technology, staff and skills. This trend was one feature of a recent Roche meeting, as Jeanette Marchant reports.

High-throughput ADVIA 2400 and ADVIA 1800 chemistry systems have reached new levels of productivity with the introduction of innovative new concentrated reagent test wedges. ADVIA clinical chemistry systems are the system of choice for many core pathology services. Their fast cycle speeds, low water usage, open-channel capability and assay menu capacity allow them to serve laboratory requirements ranging from district general hospitals through to multisite networks processing 10,000 specimens per day or more.

At the Human Protein Atlas project’s Rudbeck Laboratory, the Thermo Scientific Autostainer 480 has improved quality and reproducibility while increasing reliability and throughput, as Peter Brooks and Kenneth Wester explain.

Last year, a top London foundation trust entered into a partnership with Serco to provide an innovative and world-leading pathology service that promises to be the model for others to follow. Almost 18 months on, here is the view from Lambeth Palace Road.

Historically, the majority of tissue processing in histopathology has taken place overnight, limiting workflow flexibility. Now, the incorporation of ultrasonic technology promises to cut processing times significantly, as Neil Catlett explains.

ThinPrep cervical screening has taken a further step forward with installations of Hologic’s Integrated Imagers and ThinPrep imaging systems. Positive feedback is now arriving from early users. In the UK and Ireland there are now 17 Hologic ThinPrep Imager-enabled laboratories. The ThinPrep Integrated Imager, Hologic’s next-generation technology, represents the latest innovation in cervical screening by combining proven ThinPrep imaging technology and slide review into a single, convenient standalone device. This exciting new product allows laboratories of all sizes to benefit from the clinical advantages of ThinPrep imaging.