A Rare Case of Rhabdoid Pancreatic Carcinoma: Prolonged Disease-Free Survival Following Upfront Resection and Adjuvant Chemotherapy.

The rhabdoid subtype of undifferentiated pancreatic carcinoma is rarely reported. The clinical course of this disease is therefore poorly understood, although it is apparently an aggressive malignancy. We herein discuss the case of a 69-year-old man presenting with a rapidly enlarging mass of the pancreatic body and tail who was diagnosed with locally advanced SMARCB1-deficient undifferentiated pancreatic carcinoma with rhabdoid features, treated with radical resection and adjuvant chemotherapy, and has achieved 18-month disease-free survival ongoing at the time of article publication.

Pre-existing Ab against vimentin leads to false-positive HLA Ab results in two pediatric heart transplant candidates.

Background: HLA Ab analysis is carried out as a routine assay both pre- and post-heart transplantation to identify Abs directed against HLA with a focus post-transplant on those Abs that are donor-specific. While virtual crossmatching has decreased the requirement for prospective crossmatching in many cases, the management of highly sensitized children on the heart transplant waitlist remains challenging and can delay the ability to successfully identify a suitable organ.

Methods: This report describes the histocompatibility assessment and management of identical twin boys with familial restrictive cardiomyopathy serially listed for transplant.

Outcome of Electronic Order Alert Intervention Relative to Toxigenic Clostridium difficile PCR Analysis and Hospital-Onset C difficile Infection in a Multihospital Health Care System.

Objectives: Concern exists regarding overdiagnosis of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) via molecular modalities. We determined effects of a preanalytic order intervention on laboratory and CDI prevention measures in a multihospital system.

Methods: Intervals before and following implementation of a CDI electronic order alert (relative to appropriate testing scenario) were assessed for C difficile test volume and positivity rate, hospital-onset CDI frequency, and hospital-onset C difficile standardized infection ratio (SIR).

Improving positive blood culture removal time significantly decreases total processing time.

Context: Timely processing of blood cultures with positive results, including Gram staining and notification of clinicians, is a critical function of the clinical microbiology laboratory. Analysis of processing time in our laboratory revealed opportunities to enhance workflow efficiency. We found that the average time from positive blood culture result to removal of the bottle for processing (positive-to-removal [PR] time) was inadequate for our rapid pathogen identification program.