Serum-free light chain test utilisation at a South African academic laboratory and comparison with serum protein electrophoresis results.

Background: Serum protein electrophoresis (SPE), urine protein electrophoresis and immunofixation electrophoresis were traditionally utilised for the diagnosis of monoclonal gammopathies. The quantitative serum-free light chain (SFLC) assay is reportedly more sensitive and has been introduced to recent clinical guidelines.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate SFLC test utilisation and describe SPE findings in patients with abnormal SFLC ratios.

Rapid, Sample-to-Answer Host Gene Expression Test to Diagnose Viral Infection.

Objective: Distinguishing bacterial, viral, or other etiologies of acute illness is diagnostically challenging with significant implications for appropriate antimicrobial use. Host gene expression offers a promising approach, although no clinically useful test has been developed yet to accomplish this. Here, Qvella's FAST HR (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada) process was developed to quantify previously identified host gene expression signatures in whole blood in <45 minutes.

Impact of laboratory accreditation on patient care and the health system.

Accreditation is emerging as a preferred framework for building quality medical laboratory systems in resource-limited settings. Despite the low numbers of laboratories accredited to date, accreditation has the potential to improve the quality of health care for patients through the reduction of testing errors and attendant decreases in inappropriate treatment. Accredited laboratories can become more accountable and less dependent on external support.

The need for standardization in laboratory networks.

Expanding health care services for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria has increased the demand for affordable and reliable laboratory diagnostics in resource-limited countries. Many countries are responding by upgrading their public laboratories and introducing new technology to provide expanded testing services into more regions. This expansion carries the risk of increasing the diversity of an already highly diverse technology and testing platform landscape, making it more difficult to manage laboratory networks across different levels of the health care system.