2 2022 ISSUE 2 LEADING EDGE - 2022-2 With constantly increasing pressures on staff and workloads in clinical laboratories, any support in improving workflow and efficiencies is always going to be welcome. In this issue of Leading Edge, we document case studies and product advances that demonstrate ways this can be achieved. The team in the Biochemistry Department at Addenbrookes Hospital has recently upgraded their Siemens instruments to the Atellica Analyser. Successful transition of their BÜHLMANN fCAL® turbo calprotectin has brought several benefits. Find out more on pages 2 and 3. At Spire Manchester Hospital, Kaleem Fayyaz describes the recent change, from ELISA to the BÜHLMANN fPELA assay for elastase as a game changer. Read the story on pages 4 and 5 to find out why. Our report from Italy, on pages 6 and 7, details how the flexibility of the rapid Quantum Blue® assay for therapeutic drug monitoring is supporting clinicians with decision making and helping patients. Plus, the introduction of the next generation Basophil Activation Flow CAST® assay, with enhanced stability of samples, optimises laboratory workflow for in vitro allergy testing. Read all about it on pages 8 to 10. You can also catch up on FIT updates from the experts, with reports from our FIT User Group and the ACB Foundation Award on pages 12-15. Switching things up... Transitioning the BÜHLMANN fCAL® turbo for Calprotectin Testing from the Siemens Advia 2400 to the Atellica Analyser. Georgette Glover, Senior Biomedical Scientist, Biochemistry Department, Addenbrookes Hospital Addenbrookes Hospital has been using the BÜHLMANN calprotectin assays for a number of years. They initially employed the fCAL® ELISA with the CALEX® sample extraction device, processed on a Dynex DS2 automated system. However, in December 2018 they switched technology to the BÜHLMANN fCAL turbo high throughput assay run on their Siemens Advia 2400 analyser. Addenbrookes currently test around 28,000 samples for calprotectin per annum. This has been gradually increasing for the last few years. Recently they have had new Atellica instruments installed by Siemens and Georgette Glover, a Senior Biomedical Scientist in the Biochemistry department at Addenbrookes talks about the transitioning the fCAL turbo assay to the new platform. The Atellica analysers were installed in January this year just before I returned from maternity leave. When I came back to work I began all the verification work on the new instruments in March as this was our priority project. Assay Set Up Setting up the calprotectin fCAL turbo assay was quite straightforward – Alpha Laboratories provided the protocol and the Atellica is really very user friendly, it sort of guides you through what you need to do. The only thing we changed was to use both the wells in the Siemens reagent pack with two fCAL turbo reagent packs. This provides us with improved efficiency and is better for the environment as it reduces the number of reagent packs used by half. Patient Sample Comparison We performed a 52 patient sample comparison running the CALEX on the Advia 2400 and the Atellica system. There was good agreement between the two methods. [Figure 1; right] We also conducted linearity, LLOQ and 5x5 precision assessments. On reviewing the resulting data the entire team was very happy with the results. Using the CALEX Sample Device Prior to the study, there was a concern as to whether we were going to be able to use the CALEX sample device because it was not an approved tube type on the Atellica software. Members of the Biochemistry Team at Addenbrookes Hospital
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