Conference to Deal with MS Application in Clinical Labs

The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) has announced that a one-day conference, Practical Applications of Mass Spectrometry in the Clinical Laboratory, will be held on November 15, 2010, at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution (Baltimore, MD, USA).

The program has been created to explain some of the issues that are arising as mass spectrometry (MS) evolves into a routine laboratory application. The conference faculty will address the expanding use of MS in the clinical laboratory: its advantages and disadvantages; the basics of MS method evaluation; and laboratory considerations in MS applications for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), vitamin D, thyroid, catecholamine, and steroid analyses, and toxicology.

In the clinical laboratory the focus of MS for some decades has mainly been on the screening of newborns for metabolic disorders. As a result, clinical laboratory staff and pathologists have had only limited access to this method. However, MS is becoming increasingly accepted for routine assays in the clinical laboratory.

AACC is a professional society dedicated to improving healthcare through laboratory medicine. Its over 9,000 members are clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and others involved in developing tests and directing laboratory operations.

Related Links:
American Association for Clinical Chemistry
Johns Hopkins Medical Institution