FEATURE ARTICLES

The diagnostic and prognostic value of plasma viscosity has been highlighted in patients suspected or confirmed as having COVID-19, but its use in other areas of UK medical practice has gained clinical acceptance over the past seven decades.

Hepatitis B, a potentially life-threatening liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV), is a major global health problem. It can cause chronic infection and puts people at high risk of death from cirrhosis and liver cancer.

With the NHS continuing to struggle as it responds to the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the effects that COVID-19 disease is having on a heavy workload, Gillian Ewers examines the advantages that RFID and a transport and tracking system offer.

The International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Science has a global responsibility to support, advance and promote good scientific laboratory practice and education. Here, new IFBLS President Alan Wainwright provides an overview.

Tony Cambridge looks at a changing healthcare landscape as the service continues to respond to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and considers the important role of point-of-care tests and combination testing.

Severe cases of COVID-19 disease exhibit a range of immunological, kidney, liver and heart complications that require laboratory investigation. Randox Laboratories provides an overview and looks at quality control and assessment of testing.

Award-winning NHS partnership SWLP has adopted equipment from Beckman Coulter’s AutoMate 2500 family of sample processing systems, which has streamlined pre- and post-analytical processes to help gain optimal performance and use of resources.

A study in primary care demonstrates how testing can avoid unnecessary hospital admissions and improve patient pathways. Laura Mitcham explains how rapid assessment of full blood count and C-reactive protein contributed to the success of the project.

Unprecedented demand and a need to embrace a personalised approach to medicine: Penny Pinnock looks at these and other challenges currently facing laboratories, and considers the various financial and technological options available to NHS trusts.

Pathology has faced major challenges this year to detect the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and provide support to COVID-19 patients. Sarah Pitt provides an update on the virology, clinical aspects, testing and epidemiology of this pandemic agent.

Introducing the web-based Sysmex Caresphere Dashboard, which offers quality management features that provide full confidence in analyser and assay performance, and easy access to data across multiple clinical disciplines and physical sites.

In this second article in his new series on method comparisons, Stephen MacDonald moves on from his initial general introduction to consider experimental design and analysis, the sources of samples and the number required, and framework design.

A recent report, commissioned by Pumping Marvellous and Roche, provided surprising statistics on the diagnosis of heart failure. Carly Schott discusses key findings and the pivotal role laboratories play in the patient pathway.

SHOT laboratory incident specialist Victoria Tuckley summarises the 2019 Annual Report, and highlights why it is vital to look beyond the individual, their actions and the assignment of blame or deficiency for improvements in safety to be made.

Interferon- γ-inducible protein (IP)-10 is a small glycoprotein member of a family of chemotactic cytokines structurally related to interleukin-8. Its value as a marker of disease severity is now finding application in COVID-19.

Long-standing Stago UK customers are pioneering key elements of the company’s My Quality Solutions package as part of their comprehensive laboratory quality control requirements, as illustrated by examples from three hospital sites.

The idiom ‘to leave no stone unturned’ means to do everything possible to find something or to solve a problem. Here, Guy Orchard and colleagues apply this approach in the search for an alternative mordant for use in a new haematoxylin solution.

Public Health England is to be replaced by the National Institute for Health Protection; this came as a shock to those working in public health, and to observers with long experience of the service. Valerie Bevan provides an individual assessment.

From the laboratory to the layperson, from pathologists to the public, the response to in vitro diagnostic testing has been engaging across all sectors of society during the current pandemic. Chris Hudson provides a view on the reaction from Roche.

Following series on measurement uncertainty and internal quality control, Stephen MacDonald now turns his attention to method comparison, and here provides an introduction to what will be covered in the series in subsequent issues of the magazine.