Medical Laboratory Observer articles from December 2006

Medical Laboratory Observer archives from December 2006

Three wishes and a kumquat.(From the editor)(Editorial)
December 1, 2006... Around Christmastime at my granddaddy's house, we children would endlessly talk about what we wished Santa would bring. We studied the Sears catalog--better known as the Wish Book. We often cut out our favorite toys and pathetically laid them...

Readers respond; disaster preparedness.(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2006... Our study of Hurricane Katrina in the United States and of the tsunami in Thailand (1) illustrated clearly that we need to prepare mobile diagnostic testing resources in advance for immediate deployment to sites of rescue with early responders,...

Readers respond; STIs and HPV testing.(Letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2006... I recently read the article, "The impact of STIs" in the October 2006 issue [p. 22] and thought it contained some great information about the current methods of cervical cancer prevention. My only concern is that while the article briefly...

Readers respond; the Christophe Meriuex legacy.(Letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2006... I read your very nice tribute to bioMerieux concerning the tragic death of Christophe Merieux in the August issue of MLO [p. 42]. Do you know of a fund that has been established, or can you offer any ideas on how SeraCare might offer its...

Avian flu update.(Global diseases)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Avian flu update. As of Nov. 13, the death toll from H5N1 has reached 75, with 44 in Indonesia alone. Chinese scientists, however, have identified the virus's gene, which they believe causes such virulence in poultry. Experts hope this new...

C difficile on the rise.(Global diseases)(Clostridium difficile)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... C difficile on the rise. The recent deaths of 11 people in a Canadian hospital have been attributed to a hypervirulent strain of Clostridium difficile. Like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), C difficile was traditionally found...

E coli update.(News)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... E coli update. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says the recent outbreak of Escherichia coli that killed three people, hospitalized 104, and sickened 204, is now over. FDA officials continue their investigation of farms in the Salinas...

Committee update.(News)(Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Committee update. The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC) met Sept. 20-21 in Atlanta. Updates were presented by the FDA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Centers for Disease Control and...

Part of the routine.(News)(Howard University Hospital introduces routine HIV screening )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Part of the routine. Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC, has stepped up as the first to incorporate HIV into its routine testing menu. Following the CDC recommendation issued in June to make HIV testing a routine procedure, the...

Conferences.(Brief article)(Calendar)
December 1, 2006... * Dec. 14. Washington G-2 Reports presents a national audio conference titled "Building an Automated Histology Laboratory" from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EST. This program offers an in-depth view of the clinical histology market and emerging...

Preventing errors in the microbiology lab.(Cover story)
December 1, 2006... The first words a medical technologist intern learns are relatively simple; yet, they may become the most important of his exhaustive vocabulary list. The two words are often used synonymously, although accuracy and precision carry decidedly...

Diagnosing hypercortisolism.(CLINICAL ISSUES)
December 1, 2006... Cortisol, a glucocorticoid hormone, plays an essential role in adaptation to stress, regulation of metabolism, and inflammatory responses. Hypercortisolism is not only associated with a rare syndrome known as Cushing's but also has been linked...

CE test on PREVENTING ERRORS IN THE MICROBIOLOGY LABORATORY.(Continuing Education)
December 1, 2006... MLO and Northern Illinois University (NIU), DeKalb, IL, are co-sponsors in offering continuing education units (CEUs) for this issue's article on PREVENTING ERRORS IN THE MICROBIOLOGY LABORATORY. CEUs or contact hours are granted by the College...

The molecular diagnostics front.(Stephen J. Kondor)(Joan Gordon)(Clark A. Rundell)(Susan Zienowicz)(Elaine Weidenhammer)
December 1, 2006... New research on the genetic makeup of human beings enhances knowledge about how we might eventually understand the genetic origins of illnesses. A late-breaking report published in Nature suggests that our genetic differences may one day help...

Campaign highlights lab contributions.(Labs Are Vital)
December 1, 2006... On July 19 of this year in Chicago--on the eve of the start of the world's largest gathering of lab professionals, the AACC annual meeting--Abbott Laboratories announced a new initiative designed to explain to patients and healthcare...

The laboratory staffing crunch.
December 1, 2006... Thirteen of the top 20 fastest-growing professions in the United States are in healthcare--and clinical laboratory technologists and technicians are not among those (see Table 1). In 2004, there were more than 302,000 people employed as...

Advanced urinalysis technology and Lean management help a hospital lab improve productivity.(Fairview Ridges Hospital)
December 1, 2006... It is now axiomatic in the hospital lab industry that it takes two kinds of technology--not just one--to substantially improve the lab's productivity. The first type is information technology and robotics as embodied in automated analyzers. It...

CEO directs Beckman Coulter's corporate citizenship.
December 1, 2006... Traditional attention to innovation. Simplifying and automating lab processes through innovation has been our strategy for some time now, starting with Dr. Arnold Beckman's introduction of the spectrophotometer for automated chemical analysis...

Expressing medical diagnostics through art: how one company challenged students to depict the field in a new medium.(EDUCATION)
December 1, 2006... Medical diagnostics company bioMerieux is deeply committed to encouraging creativity, the pursuit of knowledge, and community involvement. Its Innovation in Art contest became the newest community project through which the company encouraged...

Addressing management issues.
December 1, 2006... Working for a military boss Q How would you handle favoritism on the part of a boss? We work in a military institution where everyone knows our boss does not listen to anything relating to a particular section but wants to micromanage it....

Answering your questions; D test for MLSB resistance.(macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B)(Column)
December 1, 2006... Q Could you please explain the "D" test and how to validate it? A Resistance to the macrolides in staphylococci may be due to an active efflux mechanism (encoded by the mrsA gene) or can be due to modification of the ribosomal target...

Answering your questions; poikilocytosis terminology.(Column)
December 1, 2006... Q Our lab currently examines blood smears and reports the term poikilocytosis in addition to the individual terms of spherocyte, acanthocyte, and the like. Is it still recommended to report the term poikilocytosis, or are the individual...

Answering your questions; calibration of rarely used instrument.(Clinical and Laboratory Improvement Act)(Column)
December 1, 2006... Q How often should coagulation analyzers be calibrated? I realize every six months is a general rule of thumb for manufacturers, but what if the analyzer is rarely used and a shift of control values are noticed monthly? A There are several...

Answering your questions; back flushing a blood bag with saline.
December 1, 2006... Q Our hospital's surgery department rarely does procedures that require blood transfusions during surgery. Recently, however, we had a patient who received two units of blood while in surgery. The lab was informed later that the...

Answering your questions; fresh packed red-cell transfusions.
December 1, 2006... Q We use packed red blood cells (PRBC) as fresh as possible (longest expiration date) for children's transfusions. Is this product also recommended for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) when these patients depend on multiple transfusions over a...

Answering your questions; low B12 determination.
December 1, 2006... Q I have a physician telling me that all our B12 determinations are low. The low B12 result does not agree with the clinical picture. What are some of the pitfalls in the collection, storage, and transport of specimens that would cause a loss...

Marital spat spills into the lab.
December 1, 2006... Q One of our male techs is getting divorced from a nurse who also works here. She came into the lab, threatened him, and even threw some things at him--one item hit a bystander. This frightened waiting patients. We called security, which...

Liquid-delivery quality assurance in clinical laboratories: navigating regulations and standards for liquid-delivery verification.
December 1, 2006... Consider a medical laboratory that analyzes hundreds of samples per day and releases test results to dozens of doctors for relaying information to patients. Liquid-handling equipment is used in a number of stages in the testing process--for...

Point-of-care testing; Rapid HIV-1/2 POCT.(OraQuick ADVANCE Rapid HIV-1/2)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The OraQuick ADVANCE Rapid HIV-1/2 is an FDA-approved and CLIA-waived rapid point-of-care test (POCT) that provides accurate results for both HIV-1 and HIV-2 in 20 minutes using oral fluid, finger-stick, or venipuncture whole blood or plasma...

Point-of-care testing; compact clinical chemistry system.(Product focus)
December 1, 2006... The Piccolo is the first compact clinical chemistry system designed for near-patient testing. This analyzer has a very small footprint, measuring 9.5 inches high, 6 inches wide, and 11.5 inches deep. Care providers can now perform routine...

Point-of-care testing; portable blood-gas analyzer.
December 1, 2006... The OPTI CCA Touch gas analyzer is a portable, easy-to-use, and low-maintenance solution for STAT blood gas, electrolyte, and metabolic analysis at the point of patient care and is the only STAT portable analyzer that measures tHb and...

Point-of-care testing; convenient PT/INR testing.(Product focus)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The INRatio PT/INR testing system combines practical convenience with reliable results for anticoagulation patient management. It has rigorous quality-control checks, which are performed automatically with every test. No refrigeration is...

Point-of-care testing; complete lipid profile.(Product focus)
December 1, 2006... The LDX is a small, portable analyzer and test-cassette system that has the ability to measure a complete lipid profile and glucose, ALT, AST, and hs-CRP. This analyzer does it all in five minutes per test cassette (six minutes for hs-CRP). The...

Point-of-care testing; results in minutes.(Product focus)
December 1, 2006... IRMA TRUpoint sets the standard for testing blood gas, electrolytes, and other chemistries right at the patient's side. This powerful, self-contained system can easily be transported to obtain accurate, immediate results for improved...

Point-of-care testing; lab-accurate testing.(Product focus)
December 1, 2006... i-STAT 1 is a hand-held analyzer that provides reliable results in just minutes--using as little as two drops of whole blood and a test cartridge. This system performs a comprehensive panel of critical tests using self-contained cartridges and...

Point-of-care testing; no manual calibration.(Product focus)
December 1, 2006... This Cardiac Reader is a compact desktop analyzer for fast POC diagnosis. It allows the quantitative determination of troponin T, myoglobin, D-dimer, and now N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) from a single wholeblood sample within minutes. It can...

Point-of-care testing; 90-second albumin screening.(Product focus)
December 1, 2006... Albumin 201 is for the quantitative determination of low levels of albumin in urine for the purpose of screening, diagnosis, monitoring, and supporting clinical evidence in the treatment of microalbuminuria, all within 90 seconds. Existing...

Biohazardous waste.(Industry spotlight)
December 1, 2006... Collect and dispose of biohazardous laboratory waste conveniently and economically in the Terminal Biohazard Keeper floor model. The wide-mouth opening allows you to dispose of large items such as racks of tubes or pipettes, as well as smaller...

Print labels quickly.(Industry spotlight)
December 1, 2006... Quick Start Barcode Label Printing System saves time and effort by providing everything necessary to get started printing labels quickly, easily, and with labels specifically matched to a lab's needs. These labels will perform in demanding...

Five basic models.(Industry spotlight)
December 1, 2006... With a temperature range of +1[degrees]C to +8[degrees]C, chromatography refrigerators are designed for a variety of applications requiring close temperature control, full access to chromatology instrumentation, and easy set-up of...

Celiac-disease diagnosis.(Industry spotlight)
December 1, 2006... The anti-tTG assay is a solid-phase enzyme immunoassay for the semi-quantitative detection of antibodies against tissue transglutaminase (tTG) in human serum. It is part of a new generation of anti-tTG kits with increased sensitivity and...

Rapid Neisseria ID.(Industry spotlight)
December 1, 2006... CarboFermo Neisseria is a rapid method for identifying Neisseria species by sugar-fermentation profiles. This test reduces the identification time of 24 hours down to as little as two hours. The reaction cards aid in interpretation of...

Detect blood in stool fast.(Industry spotlight)(QuickVue iFOB )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... QuickVue iFOB is an easy-to-perform diagnostic tool, which is used to detect the presence of blood in stool specimens. To use, simply add six drops of buffered specimen solution into the cassette sample well and read the results in five to 10...

Pre-classify WBCs.(Industry spotlight)(CellaVision DM96)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... DM96 is an automated image-analysis system which was designed for local and pre-classification of various types of white blood cells in peripheral blood smears. The system also pre-characterizes parts of the red morphology and provides...

Study bioterrorism response.(Industry spotlight)
December 1, 2006... Be familiar with the clinical laboratory's response to a biological or chemical terrorist alert using the Introduction to Bioterrorism course. Be acquainted with the clinical agents that might be suspect for a biological or chemical terrorism...

Chemistry analyzer.(Industry spotlight)(cobas 6000 )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The cobas 6000 analyzer provides laboratories with an integrated clinical chemistry analyzer and immunoassay testing platform as well as a small footprint and an easy-to-use interface. Its throughput is up to 1,170 tests per hour, and it...

Hemoglobin test.(Industry spotlight)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The VARIANT II TURBO Hemoglobin Testing System combines the TURBO A1C reagent kit with ultra-fast, fully automated HPCL precision, whole blood primary sampling, and software. The system streamlines workflow through either continuous or batch...

Identify staph.(Industry spotlight)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... RapID STAPH PLUS system accurately identifies all clinically important staphylococci in only four hours, providing timely isolate identification and better epidemiologic data. The system features easy-to-read color reactions, which are scored...

Sealed keyboard.(Industry spotlight)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Unotron keyboards are sealed against liquid or airborne penetration which helps to reduce the spread of infection in the workplace. They are designed for repeated immersion in water as well as frequent applications of commercial disinfectants...

Sample separation.(Industry spotlight)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Place the Express 3 next to any STAT analyzer, and serum or plasma is ready in minutes. Process as many as eight samples at once, and the rapid acceleration produces sample separation in as little as two minutes. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Instant testing information.(Industry spotlight)
December 1, 2006... Consult, Version 1.0, The Physician's Guide to Laboratory Test Selection and Interpretation, will offer instant, electronic, point-of-care access to laboratory testing information, help with test selection and decision making, and test...

Test interactions.(Industry spotlight)(American Association for Clinical Chemistry's Young's Effects Online)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Young's Effects Online puts peer-reviewed information regarding test interactions at the fingertips of laboratorians and clinicians. It is a comprehensive guide to the interactions and interference of drugs, disease, pre-analytical variables,...

Data-analysis software.(Industry spotlight)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Quantitative deconvolution software takes gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) instruments to a new level. This data-analysis software features a set of advanced deconvolution algorithms for precise, rapid compound identification and...

Smart tissue processor.(Industry spotlight)(Leica's ASP3 S)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The ASP3 S tissue processor is fully enclosed and is capable of processing up to 300 tissue cassettes in microwavable baskets. It combines tissue processing with other useful features such as a user interface, color touch screen, powerful...

Ongoing issues portend future challenges.(Washington report)
December 1, 2006... The future for fee schedules The clinical laboratory industry began this year facing potential reductions in reimbursements and the imminent implementation of competitive bidding. As of this writing, Congress has neither enacted...