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IBD-TOOLKIT

Launch of IBD Toolkit for GPs

The RCGP, in partnership with Crohn’s and Colitis UK, has launched an IBD toolkit for GPs and healthcare professionals. Clinical Champion for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Dr Kevin Barrett,  developed the toolkit with the patient representative Rachel Fowler and the project’s steering group. He comments “Inflammatory Bowel Disease affects at least 1 in 250 of the

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Evaluating CE Marked Protocols for fCAL turbo

Expanded Range of Instruments with CE Marked Protocols for BÜHLMANN fCAL® turbo assay

BÜHLMANN application specialist Christina Gabris has recently visited the UK to validate some new instrument protocols for the fCAL turbo assay. Christina spent time in hospitals around Newcastle to optimise CE marked protocols for the Beckman AU5800 and AU680. The range of instruments with CE marked protocols for fCAL turbo has now been expanded to 28 including: Roche: cobas c501 & c502, cobas c701

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Assays to meet increasing faecal calprotectin tests

Meeting the Demands for Increasing Faecal Calprotectin Tests

Labs are receiving increasing faecal calprotectin tests requests since NICE published Diagnostic Guideline 11: ‘Faecal calprotectin diagnostic tests for inflammatory diseases of the bowel’. This recommends faecal calprotectin as a first-line test for patients presenting with gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms indicative of IBS or IBD. Pam Bowe, team manager in the Department of Biochemistry at the Cumberland Infirmary, describes the evolution of her laboratory procedures to cope

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Studying Calprotectin False at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital

False Positive Faecal Calprotectin? Don’t Believe It

Read about the work at  Luton and Dunstable University Hospital, where Louise Asser and her colleagues have been using small bowel capsule endoscopy, to review patients with an increased calprotectin but normal colonoscopy, to investigate them for small bowel pathology and re-evaluate presumed false positive calprotectin results.

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Ascites Calprotectin

Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is an acute bacterial infection of ascitic fluid. It primarily occurs in patients with advanced cirrhosis and, generally, no source of the infecting agent is easily identifiable.

Fever, abdominal pain, altered mental status, abdominal tenderness, or hypotension in cirrhosis cases indicates SBP. In addition, patients with ascites admitted to the hospital for other reasons should undergo paracentesis to look for evidence of SBP.

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Does NSAID use affect the Faecal Calprotectin Result?

In a word – yes!

Is this clinically significant? in another word, no!

Most non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) cause gastric damage in short-term volunteer studies, ranging from erythema to ulcers. Recent estimates suggest that gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding attributable to nonselective NSAID accounts for nearly 34% of all GI bleeding cases (mostly upper GI bleeding) in the US and may have resulted in over 32,000 hospitalisations per year during the last decade.

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Sharing Best Practice

The recent Calprotectin Regional User Group meetings, organised by Alpha Laboratories, generated lively and informative discussions between new, experienced and some potential calprotectin assay users. Over 40 participants attended across the three meetings held in London, Birmingham and Manchester, travelling from as far afield as Truro and Glasgow. The majority of attendees had already set

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Diagnostics for Digestive Health Seminar

We are now taking bookings for this year’s Diagnostics for Digestive Health Seminar. The event takes place on 17 October 2013 at the Academy of Medical Sciences, Portland Place, London. The draft agenda is below, and the event is worth 7 IBMS CPD points and 6 RcPath CPD points.

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