Clinical Chemistry Podcast

The unintended pregnancy rate in the United States is approximately 45% despite of variety of contraceptive options available to women. Today, male condoms and withdrawal are the only reversible contraceptive methods available to men with typical failure rates between 10% and 20%. But what about a male contraceptive pill? Studies indicate that more than half of men would be interested in using a reversible method if it was available. And many women would be willing to rely on their partner to use such a contraceptive. Unplanned pregnancy rates could improve if both partners use a contraceptive method or if men had more options to control their own fertility. The January 2019 issue of Clinical Chemistry is devoted to topics of men's health. And in that issue, an article examined developments in male contraceptives with an update on both novel hormonal and non-hormonal methods.

The January 2019 issue of Clinical Chemistry is devoted to the area of men's health. Aside from non-melanoma skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the United States. It is remarkable that even though the introduction of prostate specific antigen, or PSA, into U.S. clinical practice occurred over three decades ago, researchers and clinicians are still debating its value for prostate cancer screening. In that special issue, Dr. Andrew Vickers published an Opinion article titled, "Redesigning Prostate Cancer Screening Strategies to Reduce Overdiagnosis."

Preeclampsia is a serious disorder of pregnancy that occurs by 24 weeks of gestation or later and can occur in up to 5% of all pregnancies. Maternal weight, advancing maternal age, nulliparity, a previous pregnancy with preeclampsia, and insulin-dependent diabetes are just some of the predisposing factors for developing preeclampsia. Over the past few years, development in screening, prevention, and treatment for preeclampsia have occurred and genetic studies are just now providing new insights into the etiology of this disorder. A Q&A feature in the December 2018 issue of Clinical Chemistry asked three experts with different roles in this field to discuss recent advances and ongoing challenges in preeclampsia research and implementation.

The December 2018 issue of Clinical Chemistry published a Perspective article titled "CRISPR Methods for Nucleic Acid Detection Herald the Future of Molecular Diagnostics," which discusses the findings of Chen and colleagues who earlier this year were the first to create a diagnostic tool out of a CRISPR-Cas system and demonstrate its clinical utility.

Coronary artery disease is the most common cause of death and morbidity in developed countries, resulting in substantial healthcare costs. The early detection of this disease and identification of patients at risk for myocardial infarction has enormous medical and economic value. The introduction of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin assays has revolutionized early diagnosis of myocardial infarction, but what about their use for identifying patients at risk with stable coronary artery disease?Coronary artery disease is the most common cause of death and morbidity in developed countries, resulting in substantial healthcare costs. The early detection of this disease and identification of patients at risk for myocardial infarction has enormous medical and economic value. The introduction of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin assays has revolutionized early diagnosis of myocardial infarction, but what about their use for identifying patients at risk with stable coronary artery disease? A recent study to address that issue as well as a comparison of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I and troponin T assays appeared in the November 2018 issue of Clinical Chemistry.

Influenza viruses affect millions of people each year, leading to several hundred thousand hospitalizations and thousands of deaths annually in the U.S. Early antiviral therapy reduces the duration of illness, complications and mortality associated with the flu, yet antivirals are often underutilized. However, patients with a positive influenza diagnostic test results are more likely to receive appropriate antiviral therapy and less likely to be prescribed unnecessary antibiotics. Access to reliable influenza testing is critical to facilitate both optimal patient outcomes and antimicrobial stewardship. Recently, the first point-of-care molecular diagnostic test was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for detection of the flu. At the same time, concerns about the performance of commonly used rapid antigen tests have surfaced. The landscape of influenza diagnostics is rapidly evolving and clinical laboratories are certain to face pressure regarding new testing modalities. A Q&A feature in the November 2018 issue of Clinical Chemistry asked five experts with different roles in this field to discuss recent advances and ongoing challenges in influenza diagnostics.

A Review appearing in the October 2018 issue of Clinical Chemistry describes the trends and the technologies that have emerged in the past decade and are shaping contemporary point-of-care testing. We are joined by the Review's first author, Dr. Ping Wang. She is Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of Clinical Chemistry and Core Laboratory at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Standardization efforts for amylase have been limited by a lack of commutability in the current certified reference material. New candidate reference materials have been developed to potentially overcome this limitation, facilitating their use for calibration and trueness control of routine measurement systems. An original article appearing in the August of 2018 issue of Clinical Chemistry describes the commutability assessments of these new candidate reference materials for pancreatic alpha amylase. The authors investigated if a reference material with an artificial matrix could be commutable for routine methods and compared to different statistical approaches to assess the commutability of the candidate reference materials.