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Launch Digital Edition

Webinars and Sponsored Roundtables — Register Now

Tuesday, July 21, 2026, 11:00-11:30 AM CT

Learning Objectives:
  • Explain how transparency and manufacturer partnerships improve quality, consistency, and decision-making confidence in specimen management.
  • Evaluate blood collection tubes beyond cost and commodity assumptions, incorporating clinical impact and risk into decision-making.
  • Assess the potential risk points when using a blood collection device that has not been cleared for a specific purpose.

Roundtable presenters Nick Fingland, PhD, PMP, Senior Director, R&D Operations and Science, BD, and Chris Farnsworth, PhD, D(ABCC), Section Head of Clinical Chemistry, Professor of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine.

Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY

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Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 1:00-2:00 PM ET
Learn about digital pathology technology that is future-ready, yet practical for today’s
laboratory needs.

Webinar presenters Scott Hammond, Senior Systems Consultant, Digital Pathology Division, Wexner Medical Center, Department of Pathology, and Ursula Hofer, Imaging Technologist, Pathology Digital Imaging Lab, Wexner Medical Center, Department of Pathology, and Sandra Banky, PA(ASCP), Director of Operations, Wexner Medical Center, Department of Pathology.

Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY

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Subspecialties

Interactive Product Guides

Abstracts

Clinical pathology selected abstracts

March 2025—Generative artificial intelligence is now readily available and has created a plethora of interest in health care, including in pathology and laboratory medicine. Unlike traditional AI, generative AI (Gen­AI) doesn’t rely solely on historical data to make predictions but instead uses patterns within historical data to create entirely new data. Excitement over Gen­AI must be weighed against the reality of maintaining human control over the technology and interpreting the data. The use of Gen­AI in health care may include not only streamlining administrative tasks but also performing safety critical clinical functions, such as image-based diagnosis. The risk-based approach and quality management of Gen­AI must be managed individually for each situation.

Anatomic pathology selected abstracts

March 2025—Invasive lobular carcinoma is characterized by loss of E-cadherin expression and CDH1 gene inactivation. The reliability and reproducibility of diagnosis for this tumor type is suboptimal and could be improved by better understanding the histomolecular and clinical heterogeneity of such tumors. The authors analyzed the relationship between the presence, type, or position of CDH1 mutations, E-cadherin expression, and clinicopathological features, including outcome, in a retrospective series of 251 primary invasive lobular carcinomas (ILC) with a median follow-up of 9.5 years. The mutational status of CDH1 (the gene encoding E-cadherin) was determined by RNA sequencing of frozen tumor samples. E-cadherin immunohistochemistry was performed with antibodies directed against the intracellular (clone 4A2C7) and extracellular (clone NCH38) domains.

Molecular pathology selected abstracts

March 2025—Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic process that results in expression of only one copy of a gene—either from a person’s mother or father—while the other parent’s copy of the same gene is silenced. A cluster of genes affected by imprinting on the proximal part of the long arm of chromosome 15 (15q11-q13) are associated with syndromic conditions. Deficient expression of the maternally inherited copy of UBE3A in this region results in Angelman syndrome, which is characterized by severe developmental delay, gait ataxia, and an apparent happy demeanor with profuse smiling, frequent laughing, and excitability. In contrast, deficient expression of paternally inherited genes in this region causes Prader-Willi syndrome. Clinical features of this condition can vary but often include developmental delay, short stature, hyperphagia, and obesity.

Anatomic pathology selected abstracts

February 2025—Pulmonary complications cause significant morbidity and mortality in post-hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The histopathology of pulmonary diseases in the context of post-hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (post-HSCT) is poorly characterized, especially in the pediatric population. The authors sought to characterize the pathologic spectrum of pulmonary disease post-HSCT in a pediatric cohort. Fifty-six specimens, including 53 biopsy specimens, corresponding to 53 patients were identified. Biopsy slides were reviewed and assigned to diagnostic categories (infectious, graft-versus-host disease, vasculopathy, indeterminate, and others) by consensus among three pediatric pulmonary pathologists, taking into consideration pathologic, clinical, radiologic, and laboratory findings.

Clinical pathology selected abstracts

February 2025—Low titer group O whole blood is commonly used for severe bleeding in trauma patients. It may also benefit pediatric patients undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass who are at risk for massive bleeding and coagulopathies. Circuit anticoagulation, hypothermia, hemodilution, coagulation factor, platelet loss and dysfunction, an underdeveloped hemostasis system in patients younger than two years old, and other factors lead to a higher risk of bleeding. Compared with component therapy, whole blood contains higher concentrations of RBCs, platelets, and coagulation factors, as well as cold platelets with enhanced hemostatic function. Due to the logistical challenges of donor centers providing ABO-specific whole blood for cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), the use of longer storage-age low titer group O whole blood (LTOWB) may be an option for younger pediatric patients with severe bleeding on CPB.

Molecular pathology selected abstracts

February 2025—Excision repair cross-complementation group two (ERCC2) is a tumor-suppressor gene involved in DNA repair. Compound heterozygous mutations in ERCC2 are linked to rare recessive disorders, such as xeroderma pigmentosum, Cockayne syndrome, and trichothiodystrophy, all of which are characterized by ultraviolet light sensitivity. Somatic ERCC2 mutations in cancers, particularly bladder cancers, have emerged as significant prognostic markers. The mutations predict platinum sensitivity and correlate with favorable outcomes in patients with bladder cancer, but they have not been identified as independent prognostic indicators due to a lack of data, resulting from limited cohort sizes. The authors conducted a study in which they investigated the impact of ERCC2 hotspot mutations on genomewide mutagenesis and their implications for cancer prognosis and therapeutic stratification.

Clinical pathology selected abstracts

January 2025—The Food and Drug Administration published a letter in December 2021 detailing the risk of false-positive rapid plasma reagin test results when using Bio-Rad Laboratories’ BioPlex 2200 Syphilis Total and RPR kit to test people who had received the COVID-19 vaccine. It did not appear that Treponema pallidum particle agglutination assays were impacted by this issue. Several U.S. and Canadian blood collection organizations noted an unconfirmed increase in syphilis screening test reactivity rates, including unconfirmed repeat reactive rates, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In an investigation of this issue at the authors’ institution, which involved assessing syphilis testing records, the authors saw no change in nontreponemal testing results but did observe an incidental increase in test reactivity with the Beckman Coulter PK TP Microhemagglutination assay for detecting T. pallidum antibodies in 2020 and 2021. The authors conducted a study to explore the false-positive syphilis results using a different institutional assay and calculate the reactivity rate of syphilis screening with negative confirmatory testing from 2011 to 2023.

Anatomic pathology selected abstracts

January 2025—The World Health Organization’s diagnostic criteria for malignant phyllodes tumor may miss a significant number of such tumors that have metastatic potential, according to a study conducted by the authors. Therefore, the authors proposed new refined diagnostic criteria for malignant phyllodes tumor (MPT) and conducted a study to validate the refined criteria. Their validation study included 136 borderline phyllodes tumors (BoPTs) and MPT cases that were not included in the initial study. The authors evaluated tumor classifications based on the refined criteria and World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. The revised criteria for MPT were either stromal overgrowth and one or more other features, such as marked stromal cellularity, marked stromal cytologic atypia, or at least 10 mitoses per 10 high-power fields (10 mitoses/10 HPF), or it was absence of stromal overgrowth and one or more other features, such as marked stromal cytologic atypia, at least 10 mitoses/10 HPF, or permeative border.

Pathology informatics selected abstracts

January 2025—Mismatch repair deficiency is a critical biomarker for identifying patients who may benefit from immunotherapy, and accurate classification is essential to making personalized treatment decisions. The authors conducted a study in which they presented a deep learning-based approach for classifying mismatch repair deficiency (MMR-D) in endometrial cancer using whole slide images of H&E-stained slides. They employed a multiresolution ensemble learning model in which they processed whole slide images at three magnifications—2.5×, 5×, and 10×—using a combination of the deep-learning architectures InceptionResNetV2, EfficientNetB2, and EfficientNetB3. These networks were trained on a data set of 1,168 whole slide images from 325 patients, with each whole slide image labeled by a pathologist for MMR-D or MMR proficiency (MMR-P) based on IHC results for the key MMR proteins MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, and PMS2. The authors addressed color variability in the H&E slides using a CycleGAN-based network for color normalization, ensuring consistency across the data set.

Molecular pathology selected abstracts

January 2025—Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder that has behavioral and social effects. Average patient age at diagnosis is approximately five years old. However, symptoms can appear within the first 12 months of life. The symptoms and severity of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) vary widely. They can include difficulty with verbal and nonverbal societal interaction, limited or repetitive behaviors, varying intellectual abilities, and emotional dysregulation.

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