COVER STORIES

A Jumpstart for Harmonization
Lab Leaders Meet to Advance a New Agenda
By Bill Malone

Laboratorians have long struggled with the lack of agreement between assays from different manufacturers. Now, a renewed effort to build a coalition of stakeholders to tackle the problems with harmonization has begun. At a recent conference convened by AACC, organizers charged participants with identifying those analytes most in need of assay harmonization and creating new processes to deal with them.  

New Food Allergy Guidelines
What’s the Recommended Role for Lab Tests?
By Genna Rollins

Lab results alone are not sufficient to diagnose food allergies, but they are an important component of evaluating suspected food allergies, according to new evidence-based guidelines.

Thromboelastography
Theory and Practice in Measuring Hemostasis
By Martin Kroll, MD 

Measuring patients’ hemostasis is critically important during surgical procedures like cardiopulmonary bypass. Thromboelastography, a method that measures not only the kinetics of clot formation but also the strengthand stability of formed clots, is a particularly valuable tool for monitoring coagulation statusin this type of surgical procedure, as well as others.

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AACC Joins Call for Standardization of Testosterone Testing

AACC recently joined with 10 other professional medical organizations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to endorse a consensus statement calling for broad implementation of standardized testosterone measurements.

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