Clinical Laboratory Biosafety Gaps: Lessons Learned from Past Outbreaks Reveal a Path to a Safer Future.

Patient care and public health require timely, reliable laboratory testing. However, clinical laboratory professionals rarely know whether patient specimens contain infectious agents, making ensuring biosafety while performing testing procedures challenging. The importance of biosafety in clinical laboratories was highlighted during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, where concerns about biosafety resulted in delayed diagnoses and contributed to patient deaths.

Detection of subclinical cardiotoxicity in sarcoma patients receiving continuous doxorubicin infusion or pre-treatment with dexrazoxane before bolus doxorubicin.

Background: Continuous infusion of doxorubicin or dexrazoxane pre-treatment prior to bolus doxorubicin are proven strategies to protect against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity. Recently, global longitudinal peak systolic strain (GLS) measured with speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) and high-sensitivity troponin T (hs-TnT) have been validated as sensitive indicators of doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity. Here, we asked whether changes in hs-TnT and/or GLS can be detected in patients who were treated with continuous infusion of doxorubicin or pre-treated with dexrazoxane followed by bolus doxorubicin.

Improving Patient Experience of Wait Times and Courtesy Through Electronic Sign-in and Notification in the Phlebotomy Clinic.

Context.—: The phlebotomy clinic, which sees on average 900 patients a day, was faced with issues of congestion and noise due to inefficient workflow and processes. The staff called each patient name for his or her turn, and patients were unsure of wait time and position in line.

Comprehensive assessment of biotin interference in immunoassays.

Background: Biotinylated antibodies and analogues are currently used in many immunoassays while biotin is widely used as a dietary supplement. Thus, biotin interference is an emerging issue for clinical laboratories.

Methods: Various concentrations of biotin solutions were prepared using pooled patient serum samples.

A rapid ultra-performance LC-MS/MS assay for determination of serum unbound fraction of voriconazole in cancer patients.

Background: Voriconazole (VOR), an antifungal agent, is clinically monitored to guide therapeutic dosing and avoid toxicity. It is believed that measurement of serum unbound VOR provides more accurate information, especially in hypoalbuminemia patients. We developed and validated an accurate, simple and fast test with ultrafiltration and ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC)-tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) to measure unbound VOR in human serum.