Minimal re-testing interval MRI is the period during which a test should not be repeated, based on the analyte properties and on the clinical situation. Establishing MRI is the responsibility of the laboratory in order to control the costs and provides assistance for requesters. Procalcitonin PCT is a recognized biomarker of bacterial infection useful for limiting the misuse of antibiotics. In a preliminary study, aimed a evaluating the cost due to early re-testing, PCT came on the 1st place, and represented To determine what part of these early re-tests was really useful, the difference between two consecutive results was assessed.
Indeed, previous studies demonstrated that PCT levels increased within 6 to 12 hours at the beginning of a bacterial infection and decreased with a half life of 24h when infection was controlled. Algorithms have been proposed in the literature to optimally use PCT for initiating an antibiotherapy and optimizing the duration of the treatment.
It appeared that the transition of PCT from normal to pathological values, at the beginning of the infection, occurred much faster than the inverse transition. In conclusion, our data support the view that a MRI of 48h for PCT is not adapted when a decision to initiate an antibiothrerapy has to be taken.
In contrast, such a MRI can be useful for limiting the cost of over-testing for monitoring the treatment efficacy after initiation. Actually, the implementation of informatics system to order laboratory tests could alert the requester if repeated measurement is within the MRI, but more effort will be done to improve the interoperability between informatics systems to provide more efficient assistance for requesters. To generate reliable and reproducible results from flow cytometric analyses, standardization of the entire process encompassing antibody panels, instrument set-up, sample processing, data analysis, and data reporting is essential.
(mh=uJUdF2VRdPxLZQNH)0.jpg "SEX ESCORT in Aarau")
A standardization project was proposed by the Swiss Cytometry Society SCS with the aim to increase comparability of immunophenotypic data among Swiss laboratories. In every center, lymphocyte subset analysis was performed on three blood samples central send-outs using the in house and a standardized method in parallel.
