“Post-Surge” Microbiology Testing during COVID Pandemic
September 02, 2020
Thank you for your cooperation during this challenging time. It is very much appreciated as we try and minimise the pressure on our laboratory staff and maintain good turnaround times and test quality for all the assays that we perform. COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 test volumes have now settled to some extent from the large test surge that we saw a few weeks ago. However, test numbers remain elevated at…
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Microbiology Requesting During COVID-19 Testing Surge
August 13, 2020
The recent community cases of COVID-19 have caused a huge surge in demand for molecular SARS-CoV-2 testing, approximately 1000 tests per day locally over the past couple of days. Other microbiology and molecular requests need to be urgently reduced to free up staff and preserve reagents and consumables for this COVID-19 testing. We would ask that all routine microbiology testing is minimised as…
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Change in serum free light chain testing
August 11, 2020
As of the 1st September 2020, Pathlab will be changing the instrumentation in which kappa and lambda serum free light chains are performed. Historically these tests have been performed using the SPA Plus and analysed using freelite reagent, both supplied by The Binding Site. The Binding Site has recently released an upgraded instrument, the Optilite. This instrument uses the same freelite reagent…
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Vitamin B12 - Change to Reference Interval
August 11, 2020
We have undertaken an extensive review of the reference intervals for Vitamin B12 in use at Pathlab and intend to reduce our lower reference interval from 140pmol/L to 110pmol/L Feedback from GPs suggests a higher than expected number of patients with low or marginally Vitamin B12 levels. The method we use is known to produce lower results than other methods and our quoted reference intervals are…
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Specimen Collection for Suspected COVID-19
July 24, 2020
Pathlab has been receiving many queries regarding the appropriate specimen to collect for COVID-19 following the release of the
recent MOH guidelines
on 14th July which states “either nasopharyngeal and/or oropharyngeal swabs are appropriate for the collection of specimens for COVID-19 testing.” Nasopharyngeal swab is still the preferred sample type A subsequent message released by Dr Ashley…
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