As laboratories experience expanding molecular diagnostic workloads, many are faced with meeting this increasing demand in cramped working environments. Here, Jordi Vila and Angeles Marcos describe how workflow efficiencies can be achieved in virology.
CDC/Sylvia Whitfield
“Providing a full range of medical and surgical specialties for a local population of over half a million, the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona is also a national and international centre of reference”, explained Professor Jordi Vila. “The hospital’s Department of Clinical Microbiology, also a reference laboratory for organ transplantation, operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and, like many laboratories throughout Europe, has experienced increasing workloads in recent years.
“This growth is largely due to an increase in requests for molecular biology assays,” Professor Vila continued, “including viral load monitoring for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV), which constitute an annual workload of nearly 19,000 tests (Fig 1).
“As an organ transplant reference laboratory, there has been a particular increase in CMV viral load requests for transplant donors and recipients,” commented Dr Angeles Marcos, “and the laboratory has also observed an increase in HCV viral load requests associated with new treatment regimens.”
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