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Editorial

Today we are pleased to send you our digital Newsletter which aims to provide you with some important ECAT information, relevant articles and reviews on publications in the fields of quality control and/ or laboratory diagnosis in thrombosis & haemostasis.
Enjoy reading them and stay healthy.
Petra van Velp
Update COVID-19 situation

Below you will find an update about the effect of the current COVID-19 pandemic on the services and external quality assessment programme of the ECAT Foundation.
 
ECAT Office
As a result of the current situation in The Netherlands and new governmental regulations we have again reduced the daily occupancy of the ECAT office. We do our utmost to keep everything running as usual. However, due to the reduced occupancy, it may take some days for us to respond to your emails. We apologise for any inconvenience.
 
EQA Surveys
Despite the reduced daily capacity in the office, our first priority is to keep the surveys running according to the defined schedule. However, at the moment we expect that probably not all participants will receive their samples before or in the early stage of the survey period which starts on November 10th, 2020. For this reason we will extend the survey period with one week.
New closing date: 15 December 2020

The surveys 2020-D4, 2020-S6 and 2020-S7 are running as originally scheduled.
Below an overview of the remaining surveys is given.
HIT Survey

As you know, finding usable HIT samples is always a challenge. Unfortunately we could not obtain suitable sample material to carry out our 2020 HIT survey as originally scheduled, and so were obliged to postpone the HIT Survey.
The good news is that it seems that we have found a more reliable source. We expect that we will be able to dispatch the samples by mid-December 2020. We will inform you by e-mail as soon as the samples have been dispatched. We apologies for any inconvenience.
Subscription 2021

Recently all participants who have a direct registration with ECAT have received the information about the start of the subscription year 2021. This also includes information about the subscription procedure.
All participants who are registered via one of our distributors will receive the information from them.

ECAT Information:
Programme changes in 2021  

In 2021 there will be a few changes in the ECAT EQA Programme. Read more
 

ECAT Information:
Overview of Z-scores  

The Main, Anticoagulation and Screen survey reports include a page where an overview is given of the Z-scores obtained for the different parameters included in the survey. Recently it was revealed that for the different categories (Satisfactory; Need attention; Unsatisfactory) the Z-scores are not correctly indicated in the legend in the overview table. Read more
 

Case report:
Acquired protein S deficiency with purpura fulminans presentation in the aftermath of varicella zoster in a child 

A 4-year-old girl was referred to the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) in  our hospital because of purpura fulminans. A week earlier, she had suffered an acute varicella zoster virus (VZV) infection with the appearance of characteristic vesicular lesions and fever. On the day of admission, the girl suddenly experienced pain in both legs and massive, well-delineated purpuric lesions appeared. Upon admission to the ICU, her vital functions were preserved and some remaining, crusted varicella zoster lesions were noticed. Read more

Literature Review:
The antiphosphatidylserine/prothrombin detection in solid phase assay is largely dependent on the type of samples .

(Kumano, O. et al. Int J Lab Hematol. 2020;42:e177–e179)

Piet Meijer, ECAT, The Netherlands

The laboratory criterion for the antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is the presence of antiphospholipid (aPL) antibodies. The presence of these antibodies can be measured by either lupus anticoagulant (LA) or antiphospholipid antibody IgG/IgM assays for anti-β2 glycoprotein I (aβ2GPI) and anti-cardiolipin (aCL) antibodies. Read more
Upcoming Events
2020 AACC Annual meeting 

13-17 December 2020, Virtual meeting,
website

14th Annual Congress of EAHAD 

3-5 February 2021, Virtual congress,
website

 

GTH 2021 

22-26 February 2021, Virtual congress,
website
 

12th ECAT participants' Meeting 2021 

17-19 November 2021, Leiden, Netherlands,
website

 


For more events, please have a look into our Calendar.
October 2020, Issue 18
ECAT Foundation
Content:
News
ECAT Information
Case Report
Literature Review
Upcoming Events
Calendar
Diagnostic Corner
Pharma Corner
Editor in Chief:
P. van Velp

Editorial Board:
P. van Velp
P. Meijer

Advisory Committee:
E. van Cott
K. Devreese
D. Peetz
A. Stroobants

Email:
info@ecat.nl
Phone:
+31.(0)71.3030910 9
Fax:
+31.(0)71.3030919
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