FEATURE ARTICLES

An event such as the Biomedical Science Congress would be impossible to stage without the fulsome support of the commercial sector. At this yearÆs Congress the associated exhibition provided an intriguing insight into the future direction of laboratory medicine, as IBMS Council member Nick Kirk discovered.

Automation is providing high-throughput laboratories with the ability to handle ever-increasing demands on their services. The Department of Laboratory Medicine in Southampton is one more laboratory that has benefited from Beckman CoulterÆs expertise in this area.

Managing quality issues in pathology laboratories rapidly has become a major concern for the profession. However, as Barry Hill reports, help is now at hand thanks to a new service available from the CDL Group.

Every manager in cellular pathology experiences the demand for savings and the implementation of Lean management and Six Sigma; however, lack of money eats into morale. Solutions are proffered that may appear unwieldy, ill-organised, even unrealistic, and have no regard for the fact that a service has to be provided. Here, Sue Wollington provides an alternative solutions for the 21st century.

What do crocodiles and plovers have in common with the countless sample request forms that a microbiology department handles each year? Well, they provided the inspiration for a pioneering software company to transform document management by eliminating expensive databases.

With the recent announcement of Alan TrinderÆs forthcoming retirement as general manager for Olympus Diagnostic Systems, Pathology in Practice has taken the opportunity to talk with Alan and his successor, Steve Swanscott, about their experiences and views of the diagnostics market and of Olympus, past, present and future.

In the current NHS climate, trusts are continually looking for ways to reduce their financial exposure. Thus, the management services of a vendor-independent company such as Asteral have great appeal, particularly in the field of laboratory medicine.

Growing demand for more information about medical conditions and treatments has now become a reality in modern healthcare. Medical Solutions is at the forefront of breast cancer diagnosis and offers comprehensive test portfolios designed to answer key questions about disease prognosis and treatment options for the patient.

More than 40 years after being associated with the introduction of single-use laboratory plastics, the Sterilin name continues to set standards for quality and reliability. In conjunction with that of MicroRheologics (Copan Group) in Italy, the name now reflects a major advance in swab technology that provides vastly improved sample collection and release. Rachel Adams explains.

CambridgeÆs famous hospital is the site of one of the governmentÆs new biomedical research centres. So, what better location could there be for Beckman Coulter to collaborate with haematology to expand the potential of the laboratoryÆs automation installation?

The management of stock is a crucial factor to smooth running in the laboratory environment. Introduction of the StockTraxx NHS inventory system has enabled Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Foundation TrustÆs biochemistry department to control costs and operate just-in-time ordering.

The use of tissue microarray methodologies has increased dramatically over the past decade. Now, the National Cancer Institute and The Netherlands Cancer Institute have become the first research organisations to adopt TMALab II software.

Transport a Victorian laboratory assistant into a modern-day histopathology department and they would feel immediately at home with tissue processing. However, things are moving on at last, and xylene-free processing is one example of changing methodology, as Glyn Woodward explains.

Point-of-care testing is finding increasing application in healthcare, and monitoring patients on anticoagulant therapy is just one example of how this aspect of pathology modernisation is evolving. Here, Robert Powley examines a hand-held coagulometer from Inverness Medical UK.

Although one of the oldest disciplines in pathology, microbiology has experienced little impact from automation. However, the debut of the AccuPAS system may be about to change this perception, as Catherine Balding reports.

With strict new blood bank refrigeration and storage requirements now in force to comply with European regulations, and with MHRA inspections imminent, Barry Hill talks to one company that has a solution to the present concerns.

The unmasking, labelling and detection systems that together represent modern-day immunohistochemical technique have been refined over the past quarter of a century. However, Vector continues to produce dividends at the cutting edge of cellular pathology technique, as Ian MacKarill explains.

An Australian study of the ThinPrep Imaging System from Cytyc featured in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal. A synopsis of the findings is summarised below.

The use of latex agglutination methodology is ubiquitous in pathology, having first been described over 50 years ago. Now, advances in technology employed by Pro-Lab Diagnostics mean that visual results are now faster, clearer and more specific.

Concerns in blood transfusion departments about the need to meet the demands of the EU Blood Directive, and other requirements, has led one UK company to develop an innovative standalone information technology solution to address the problem.