When the ISICEM 2012 opens this March, Brussels will again experience a healthy influx of medical specialists intent on hearing the most recent, clinically relevant developments in research, therapy and management of the critically ill.
The 500-bed Warrington Hospital in the north-west of England has introduced rapid, accurate POCT to its wards. The hospital was one of the first in the UK to install Siemens RAPIDLab 1200 Blood Gas Analyzers and the RAPIDComm v3.0 Data Management System. More recently, it has installed Clinitek Status Connect systems to further enhance its operations.
Artel is launching the new MVS Multichannel Verification System, an objective performance assessment and optimization tool for automated liquid handlers. The MVS offers accuracy and precision information for any liquid handling device with up to 384-channels, allowing for confidence in assay data.
With handyscope, FotoFinder presents the first device for mobile skin cancer examination via the iPhone. This digital handheld dermatoscope allows doctors to capture and save microscopic pictures of moles using the iPhone, the handyscope device and the corresponding handyscope app.
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has one of the largest immunohistochemistry / in situ hybridization (IHC / ISH) workloads in the United Kingdom, performing almost 120,000 IHC slides a year.
‘We are all aware of the importance of early diagnosis and rapid appropriate treatment of patients with severe sepsis. Yet, many patients still do not receive satisfactory early management and the application of recent guidelines for sepsis management is still inadequate,’ writes Jean-Louis Vincent MD PhD, from the Intensive Care Department, Erasme Hospital, Université Libre de Bruxelles,…
Debuting at the AACC meeting was the first free mobile application to help consumers decipher their own medical tests. Created for use on an iPhone, iPad and Android smartphone, the Lab Tests Online app connects to a site promising to provide reliable, unbiased information that enables them to have more informed conversations with their doctors.
The health of the laboratory/ clinician relationship has always served as a good indicator of the overall quality of a given healthcare network. Historically, labs focused ‘heads down’ on delivering excellent test results, but today appear to be expanding their horizons to partner with clinicians for better patient care.
A drop of blood can unlock secrets of the heart. By analysing the biological elements present in a blood, a physician can better understand the extent of damage or disease for patients with heart failure and more confidently prescribe a course of treatment.
A modern-day childhood totally differs from what was common just a few decades ago. It is mostly spent sitting -- at school desks, in front of TV screens or before computer monitors – all combined with the sweet temptations of the kid’s food industry. According to a WHO worldwide estimate, an estimated 10% of school-age children between five and 17 years old are overweight or obese. The…
Professor Bill Keevil, Director of the Environmental Healthcare Unit at University of Southampton’s School of Biological Sciences, was among the first microbiological researchers to experiment on copper’s efficiency against pathogenic and nonpathogenic strains of E. coli bacteria and demonstrate the inherent anti-microbial property of the metal.
During the IFCC and EuroMedLab congress in Berlin, Beckmann Coulter launched into Europe its AU 5800, which, the firm reports, improves processing time compared to current systems and therefore meets the demands of ever faster workflow in clinical laboratories.
Adaptability and scalability were the buzz words at the Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics booth at this year’s IFCC-Worldlab and EuroMedLab congress. With the ongoing generation of their highperformance automation systems as an example, the company offers a multi-discipline architecture that enables a lab team to build an automation solution following their individual demands.
Roche Diagnostics showcased its full spectrum of cobas laboratory solutions at EuroMedLab this year. Visitors were given live demonstrations and shown videos of leading products for both small and large laboratories – including workflow automation, analytics and customised IT.
Too much unhealthy food, too little exercise – the risk factors for the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and Type 2 diabetes are not only similar but also form a life-threatening alliance.
Since the German Federal Ministry of Health did not oppose the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) decision to eliminate reimbursement for urine and blood sugar test strips for Type 2 diabetics not dependent on insulin from the services provided by statutory medical insurers, from this October test strips will only be prescribed in exceptional cases.
Bacteria are highly flexible when it comes to choosing a vehicle to enter a human body. During orthopaedic surgery, they may well settle on a prosthetic joint and cause immediate or delayed infections.
Morbid obesity is a chronic, lifelong, multifactorial, constitutional disease with negative medical, psychological, physical, social and economic side-effects. Obesity-related secondary diseases are Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension or sleep apnoea. Report: Holger Zorn
Facing the fundamental changes that laboratory medicine is undergoing, in early June Roche Diagnostics Deutschland GmbH invited 50 high-profile speakers to a six-day symposium to discuss current research, economic and diagnostic issues in lab medicine with a professional audience. Report: Karoline Laarmann
The clinical informatics firm ICNet International Ltd, which develops case management and surveillance software, has produced a software package using the SSI (Surgical Site infection surveillance) Monitor to combine information about patient movements in a hospital with data held by the laboratory and theatre systems -- and to alert staff if a patient is either infected or at risk of contracting…
This May, IFCC WorldLab Berlin with its manifold scientific programme gives clinical lab physicians the opportunity to see over the rim of the tea cup of their working field. Within the congress theme ‘Healing the world’ comes an exciting lecture on laboratory work in third world countries and disaster areas.
‘Three years is a long time in the world of research. The amount of information on offer quickly grows quite enormously,’ says Professor Rudolf Tauber, joint head of this year’s WorldLab congress with Professor Harald Renz. Thus, one organisational challenge was to channel current trends and developments and present participants with an informative, comprehensive overview. How was this…
2011 The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) has published the program for its 2011 Annual Meeting being held July 23 – 28 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA. This year the Annual Meeting features almost 300 individual educational events in a variety of formats. Hot topics for 2011 include cancer, obesity, diabetes, and healthcare reform.
The role of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in prostate cancer detection continued to command attention at during the annual congress of the European Association of Urology (EAU) in March.
Following CE mark registration to sell a fully-automated Mycophenolic acid (MPAT) test for use on the Dimension integrated chemistry systems*, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics has become the first to offer the consolidation of four fully-automated immunosuppressant drug (ISD) tests -- Mycophenolic acid, Cyclosporine, Tacrolimus and Sirolimus – used to monitor organ transplant patients.
