Medical Laboratory Observer articles from May 2005

Medical Laboratory Observer archives from May 2005

An "army" of one.(From the editor)(Editorial)
May 1, 2005... Who knows why one acquires an odd habit? Mine is a penchant for daily perusing the obituaries and saving the most interesting--a habit I acquired in my early 20s. Thus, throughout the years, my world has been filled with an ever-widening circle...

FISH versus aCGH.(Readers respond)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... Clinical laboratory genomics is an important issue for your readers since it is likely to change the landscape of laboratory testing for many medical conditions in coming years. Drs. Billings and Brown have presented an overview of advances in...

Antibiotic-removal devices defended.(Readers respond)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... I wish to commend Colleen Gannon on a well-written article ["Responsible reporting in microbiology...," December 2004, p.18] describing many of the clinically relevant reporting practices which we employ and which I recommend to participants...

Medicine must be a "calling".(Readers respond)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... I would like to respond to Dr. Block's rebuttal of the MLO article, "Responsible reporting in microbiology: improving quality of care through better communication," December 2004 [p. 18]. As a pathologist with specialty boards in...

Senate briefing on cord-blood stem cells.(News)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Senate briefing on cord-blood stem cells. On April 4, Keone Penn and Stephen Sprague, two cord-blood transplant recipients who were cured of sickle-cell anemia and leukemia, respectively, appeared before the Senate in support of the Cord Blood...

Revered vaccinologist dies.(News)(Obituary)
May 1, 2005... Revered vaccinologist dies. Maurice Hilleman, a microbiologist best known for developing eight of the most frequently used human vaccines, died of cancer on April 11 at the age of 85. Dr. Hilleman, who developed 40 animal and human vaccines in...

Kidney failure indicator.(News)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Kidney failure indicator. In a study of 71 children with recent heart bypass surgery, Cincinnati Children's Hospital researchers found that high levels of a protein marker in the urine or blood of 20 children were an early sign of kidney...

MS diagnosis.(multiple sclerosis)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... MS diagnosis. The March 24 issue of the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience reports that researchers believe their discovery of three common peptides apparently unique to individuals with MS (multiple sclerosis) could lead to a simple blood test...

CaseLab Workshop: A Case-Based Learning Experience.(Education)
May 1, 2005... June 3-4. CLMA is sponsoring "CaseLab Workshop: A Case-Based Learning Experience," a two-day program targeted at current and aspiring lab managers who want to learn to develop and present annual lab budgets, justify major capital expenditures,...

Conferences.(Calendar)
May 1, 2005... June 26-28. The Hilton Salt Lake City Center in Utah is the site of the 2005 APHL Annual Meeting, which will include a business meeting, a keynote session, general sessions, and exhibits. Directed toward public health laboratory managers and...

Mosquito-borne flaviviruses and human disease.(Cover Story)
May 1, 2005... CONTINUING EDUCATION To earn CEUs, see test on page 22. LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. List the major flaviviruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes and cause human infection. 2. Describe the clinical presentations of the diseases...

Understanding the natriuretic peptides.(CLINICAL ISSUES)
May 1, 2005... Three types of natriuretic peptides have been identified in the human body: A, or atrial type (ANP), identified in the late 1980s; B, or brain type (BNP), identified in 1988; and C type (CNP), identified in 1990. These three hormones have a...

Corrections and clarifications.(Correction Notice)
May 1, 2005... * While the author referred throughout his article to Becton, Dickinson and Company or BD as "the maker of Vacutainer brand tubes," BD's trademark office sent MLO the requirements for referencing its Vacutainer federally and internationally...

Ten instruments that changed the lab.(LAB MANAGEMENT)
May 1, 2005... Laboratorians have had a love/hate relationship with lab instruments for many years. Those of us who have been in laboratories for 25 years or longer have fond and not-so-fond memories of the classic instruments that cranked out the numbers for...

SeraCare's CSO Mark Manak accents global blood safety.(Executive snapshot)
May 1, 2005... Rising to the challenge: In late 2002, the FDA challenged diagnostic manufacturers to develop a blood-screening test for WNV (West Nile virus), and BBI quickly introduced quantitated WNV nucleic acid panels, which were provided to kit...

Workload assessment.(Addressing management issues)
May 1, 2005... Q Our management team wants the lab to assess the amount of tech time spent on each of our tests. We are a small university health center performing approximately 20,000 in-house tests per year. We also draw blood and are an integral part of...

Certification and CE for managers.(Addressing management issues)
May 1, 2005... Q Can you offer any advice for continuing education for managers? What are your thoughts on the DLM certification offered by ASCP? Do you feel that a master's degree is worth obtaining for an individual working as a supervisor or manager in the...

CBC storage.(Answering your questions)
May 1, 2005... Q Our reference laboratory recommends that whole-blood specimens for automated blood counts collected in EDTA be maintained at room temperature during transit because refrigeration may precipitate cryoproteins, which trap leukocytes and...

Prediabetes indicators.(Answering your questions)
May 1, 2005... Q What are prediabetes indicators, and are there different categories? Also, will the term "prediabetes" worsen a patient's insurance category? A People with prediabetes are those found to have impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or impaired...

Lipase method problems.(Answering your questions)
May 1, 2005... Q According to the clinicians at our facility, amylases and lipases performed on our new instrument, System B, seem to be less clinically reliable than those performed on our older instrument, System A, in cases of suspected pancreatitis. Some...

Methamphetamine testing in children.(Answering your questions)
May 1, 2005... Q Our laboratory has received requests from the local police department and the department of social services to perform drug testing on children who are picked up from meth houses. The testing is for medical treatment only, not legal purposes....

Privacy issues restrict lab blogging.(Liability and the lab)
May 1, 2005... Q One of our techs who is Internet savvy has suggested we start a lab blog for communication purposes and for improving service. I am not really familiar with the concept and am not sure it is a good idea. What are the risks? A "Blogs,"...

Trends in LIS.(laboratory information systems)
May 1, 2005... Over the last several years, healthcare has often been referred to as "the last frontier" for IT. The proliferation of large hospital systems, which embrace patient care from A to Z, has required the consolidation of information management...

Blood-bank systems, instruments, products, and services.(product focus)
May 1, 2005... According to the American Association of Blood Banks, 8 million volunteers donate blood each year (www.aabb.org/All_About_Blood/FAQs/aabb_faqs.htm#1). Statistics from the National Blood Data Resource Center's 2001 survey show that...

Blood banks move into the 21st century with automation.(Product focus)
May 1, 2005... For those medical technologists still coveting the phrase "shake and break," get ready to adopt the bold new lexicon generation of "instrument interface," "autofiling," and "hand-held devices." These words reflect the evolving nature of the...

Slide ID system.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Fully utilize bar-code technology to improve the tracking process of slides and eliminate potential lab errors with StainerShield, a bar-code identification system designed for prestainer labeling of tissue and specimen slides. Lab technicians...

Microorganism recovery.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... The CultureSwab MaxV transport system uses a mix of hypoallergenic, nonanimal proteins embedded on the swab to enhance the recovery and viability of microorganisms from patient samples. The gas-impermeable packaging protects the media from...

Health & safety catalog.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Create a safer, more productive work environment with products from the 2005 Cole-Parmer Environmental Health & Safety Catalog. Inside, find 96 pages packed with a broad selection of new safety instrumentation; facility-safety products for...

Next-generation analyzer.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... The second in a series of UniCel brand lab instruments, the UniCel DxC 600 Synchron analyzer features an onboard capacity of 65 reagents and a throughput of up to 990 tests per hour. The system provides results for 96 basic metabolic panels...

Blood-collection tubes.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Two new safety blood-collection tubes, K2 EDTA and K2 EDTA with Gel, are now offered for use in molecular diagnostic methods, such as PCR, where an undiluted plasma specimen is required. The tubes perform in a variety of molecular application...

Sterilization-resistant labels.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Designed for wet, dry, and radiation sterilization processes, Sterilization-Resistant Computer Imprintable Labels are resistant to autoclaves, chemicals, detergents, washing, and temperatures up to 400[degrees]C, and are ideally suited for...

LIS software.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... A suite of hosted applications, e.lixa, is designed to extend a laboratory's LIS with enhanced features, including e.charts, which enables the user to easily create patient reports featuring graphical analysis; e.inquiry, which provides fast...

Peristaltic pumps.(Industry spotlight)
May 1, 2005... The 400 Series Peristaltic Pumps provide a broad choice of flow rates ranging from 0.001 ml to 730 ml per minute, through one to four channels. The pumps offer zero contamination, sterility, easy cleaning, accurate metering, low shear, smooth...

New release.(Industry spotlight)(P-Wave Inc.)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... For labs that need to manage huge volumes of documents and data, LabCORE V2.01 is a Web-based document and workflow-management application with new and enhanced features: a flexible storage file system; the ability to create 'customized...

No [H.sub.2]O or catalyst needed.(Industry spotlight)
May 1, 2005... The GasPak EZ System offers six new varieties of gas-generating systems used for creating anaerobic-, campylobacter-, or C[O.sub.2]-enriched environments in containers or pouches. No water or catalyst is required for activation. New stackable,...

IDs 90% of isolates fast.(Industry spotlight)
May 1, 2005... The latest CLSI M100 and M044P (bacteria/yeast antibiotic disk test) guidelines are in the BIOMIC Vision System. Its digital image analysis instantly reads and interprets zone sizes and determines accurate MICs from the standard disk test....

Write on hard surfaces.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... The ImmPrint specialized permanent-marking pen has been designed for writing on glass microscope slides, tissue cassettes, and most hard surfaces. Its high-density, fast-drying black ink is resistant to most organic solvents encountered in...

Auto liquid handling.(Industry spotlight)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Three new Eppendorf epMotion 5075 robotic liquid-handling workstations feature optical sensors to monitor labware and liquid levels on a 12-place deck; offers ability to automatically change pipetting heads and move labware to various...

Dye-free wipes.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Sani-Dex ALC Antimicrobial Alcohol Gel Hand Wipes kill 99.99% of harmful bacteria and remove soil from hands caused by natural friction of the wiping action. Made from nonwoven cloth saturated with a fragrance- and dye-free ethyl alcohol gel...

Needlestick safety.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Punctur-Guard Safety Needle Products provide the only technology that allows healthcare workers to blunt the needle while still in patients' veins, for the highest level of protection against accidental needlesticks for blood-collection needles...

All-steel freezer.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Used for biological storage, microbiology, tissue preservation, plasma, and blood cells, Laboratory Freezer Model U85-22 features an all-steel cabinet construction with a counterbalanced lid, an indicating temperature control for an adjustable...

For use with stool specimens.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... EcoFix ULTRA is a nonmercury- and nonformalin-based fixative in a convenient one-vial system for routine collection, preservation, and examination of stool specimens for intestinal parasites. Direct examination, concentration, and permanent...

TSH testing.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... This new CLIA-waived rapid diagnostic test (CPT code 8443) for TSH, Thyro Test, is now available to physicians who are screening for hypothyroidism. Results from this affordable test ($14) are available in 10 minutes. Twenty tests per kit...

Whole-blood calibrator.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Cal-Chex X is a whole-blood calibrator for the Coulter [A.sup.C] * T 5 diff and ABX Pentra 50C+, 80, and 120 hematology analyzers. With five-day open-vial and 45-day closed-vial stability, Cal-Chex X complements the company's whole-blood...

Small-footprint centrifuge.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... The new Express 3, STAT Primary Tube Centrifuge can boost TAT and throughput. The fixed-angle rotor holds up to eight blood tubes from 1.5 mL to 10.0 mL. Placed next to lab analyzers, Express 3 performs STAT chemistry, cardiac, or coagulation...

Test now CLIA-waived.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Screen Dipstick Test (with internal procedural controls) is an on-site device for simultaneous detection in urine of one to four commonly abused [R.sub.x] or illegal drugs. In 10 seconds, device is dipped/removed, and test is completed in five...

New Bactron brochure.(Industry spotlight)(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Bactron Anaerobic/Environmental Chambers is the company's new brochure which features two new units of this product line. Clear, detailed spec chart for each of five models with 100-, 200-, new 300-, 600-, and new 900-plate capacities is...

EQC's future sparks continued dialogue.(Washington report)(equivalent quality control)
May 1, 2005... When CMS, in conjunction with CDC, published the final CLIA Quality System regulations in January 2003, it included a provision that permits the development of alternative mechanisms for QC (quality control) in the SOM (State Operations...