27 May 2019 (Monday) - Li-Fraumeni Syndrome

The nice people at Lablogatory sent their update today. To be honest I didn’t really take that much notice of it. In the first paragraph was mention of Li-Fraumeni Syndrome. I’d never heard of that before.

Wikipedia has a very simplified summary of the condition, but in the first instance, a very simplified summary isn’t a bad thing. In a nutshell this syndrome is a malfunction of the tumour suppressing systems, and is an autosomal dominant hereditary condition… which begs the question that given the prevalence of tumours in these children, how do they live long enough to breed?

I might just read up on this…

27 May 2019 (Monday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

Time for another BTLP-TACT exercise…

I was presented with one case; a sixty-five year old chap under the urologists requiring a group and save.

He grouped as A Pos with no atypical antibodies detected.

It all seemed rather simple… what had I missed? It turned out I’d got it right. Another green light. Result !!

24 May 2019 (Friday) - ASH Update

The nice people at the American Society of Hematology sent their update today. This one had an adjunct which concentrated on matters of haemostasis; something I’ve often felt I’m… if not rather weak, certainly needing strengthening…

24 May 2019 (Friday) - Africa

The nice people at Lablogatory sent their update today. Not actually relevant to my daily round, but it made me think. The article was about a path lab in deepest Africa.

When I first started in lab work (in 1981) the boss had been very much involved in a charity which was raising money to buy lab equipment for a hospital laboratory in Rwuanda. She flew all the gear out there to find that with no electricity available for miles around there wasn’t really very much she could do.

It would seem that things have changed

23 May 2019 (Thursday) = Transfusion News Update

The nice people at Transfusion News sent their update today. You can read it by clicking here.

There are new criteria for assessing transfusion-associated circulatory overload (TACO).

I was intrigued about the new guidelines for screening for babesiosis. I wonder how long it will be before this is an issue in the UK…

20 May 2019 (Monday) - HDN due to anti-K

Now here’s something which is of use to me. The nice people at Lablogatory posted up a case study. HDN due to anti-K.

I can remember going to a presentation on this very subject over thirty years ago. The child became incredibly ill because the consultant in charge allegedly declared that if he had never heard of anti-K then it couldn’t be very important.

How times have changed…

20 May 2019 (Monday) - Proficiency Testing

Proficiency testing is seemingly the “next big thing” in my world. On reflection it isn’t a bad thing. For years the assumption has been made that we know what we are doing when (just perhaps) some of us might not. And it is no secret that I for one feel I benefit from discussing work-related stuff.

The nice people from Lablogatory have posted on the matter. You can see what they’ve said by clicking here. It is a shame that what they’ve posted is rather blah-blah-management rather than useful-useful-practical, but I suspect that what I refer to as “Proficiency testing” is perhaps rather different to what they had in mind.

Still, this post is far more relevant to much that they’ve put up recently…

20 May 2019 (Monday) - BTLP-TACT excercise

 

I thought I’d best do a BTLP-TACT exercise today. If I don’t do one a fortnight I get little reminders from the boss. And for all that I might grumble, I quite like having the emergency simulator to hand.

 

I was presented with two cases.

41749 was an eighty year old woman requiring group and save for a fem-pop bypass.

94647  was a thirty year old chap in acute renal failure for a group and save

 

 

41749 was blood group AB Neg with weakly positive antibody screen in cells one and two.

I ordered antibody panels. The IAT and enzyme panels were positive in cells one, two and three. This corresponded with anti-D but anti-Cw could not be ruled out.

 

94647 was blood group A Pos with positive antibody screen in cell two.

I ordered antibody panels. The IAT panel was positive in cells two, three, five and six which didn’t actually correspond with anything, but anti-K and anti-E could not be ruled out. In fact it could have been anti-E and anti-K.

The enzyme panel gave the same result, but weaker reactions in cells two and six (anti-K) and stronger reactions in cells three and five (anti-E)

I decided to go for anti-E and anti-K.

The option to have performed a phenotype would have been useful here.

 

I got it right…

16 May 2019 (Thursday) - Oncologist Newsletter

The Oncologist newsletter arrived in my in-box today. As always it I really more of peripheral interest, but interesting nonetheless.

There was a particularly interesting bit about the pathophysiology of the cancerous cells in Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I followed most of it… which is probably about the best I could hope for bearing in mind how technical the article was.

14 May 2019 (Tuesday) - NBCA Newsletter

The National Blood Clot Alliance sent their monthly update today. It was of peripheral interest (at best).

I’ve been discussing CPD with colleagues recently. For some reason I seem to be viewed as something of an expert on the subject. I’m not – I’ve just subscribed to pretty much every e-journal and mailing list and Facebook group I can find in the desperate hope that I might learn the odd thing or two. It’s no secret that much of what I come up with is of no relevance whatsoever. I think it’s probably fair to say that for every individual thing I find that warrants mention in this blog, there’s half a dozen that go straight in the bin.

I think that I might unsubscribe from the updates from the National Blood Clot Alliance. No disrespect intended to them, but I am *not* their target audience.

14 May 2019 (Tuesday) - IBMS Newsletter

The IBMS sent their newsletter today. You can read it by clicking here. There was a load of stuff… it was all rather interesting, but a lot of it was about what specific people were doing and about biomedical science day…

I used to get involved with that. Am I too old to do so now? Looking at all the publicity material it seems to be something for the “hip young things”. I *really* feel I could do so much more than just bide my time until retirement…