Idea to ease PT standard for HbA1c stirs alarm
July 2019—Excellence is considered the hallmark of progress throughout health care. We don’t expect to hear that, for a particular diagnostic test, standards may already be too high.
Webinars and Sponsored Roundtables — Register Now
Tuesday, October 20, 2026, 11 AM-12 PM ET
Hear experts review the biological and clinical significance of the HER2 expression continuum in breast tissue, providing a clearer understanding of how these variations might impact diagnosis, and discuss the emerging importance of documenting HER2-low and HER2-ultralow categories using a validated IHC assay.
Webinar presenters Keith Wharton, MD, PhD, Global Medical Affairs Leader–Pathology, Roche Diagnostics Solutions, and Hannah Y. Wen, MD, PhD, Director, Breast Pathology Fellowship, Associate Team Leader, Breast Pathology Team, Attending Pathologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
CAP TODAY does not endorse any of the products or services named within. The webinar is made possible by a special educational grant from Roche.
Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY
Thursday, October 29, 2026, 1 PM-2 PM ET
Hear an expert discuss the evolving role of PD-L1 testing in HNSCC and ovarian cancer.
Webinar presenter Georgios Deftereos, MD, Professor of Pathology, Associate Director of the Clinical Cancer Genomics Laboratory, Director of Molecular Cytopathology, University of California, San Francisco
CAP TODAY does not endorse any of the products or services named within. The webinar is made possible by a special educational grant from Agilent.
Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY
Tuesday, November 3, 2026, 1 PM-2 PM ET
Hear an expert discuss the challenges of detecting NRG1 fusions and how RNA-based testing can support more comprehensive fusion identification in clinical practice.
Webinar presenter Benjamin Weinberg, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Attending Physician
specializing in gastrointestinal medical oncology
CAP TODAY does not endorse any of the products or services named within. The webinar is made possible by a special educational grant from Diaceutics.
Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY
Monday, November 16, 2026, 12:30 PM-2 PM ET
Hear experts discuss a multidisciplinary approach to oncopathology for HER2
assessments for solid tumors in the absence of a companion diagnostic.
Webinar presenters Funda Meric-Bernstam, MD, Chair, Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics Medical Director, Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, and Emina E. Torlakovic, MD, PhD, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Canadian Biomarker Quality Assurance, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and Carol Cheung, MD, PhD, JD, FRCPC, Deputy Director, Canadian Biomarker Quality, Assurance—Programme canadien d’assurance de la qualité des biomarqueurs
CAP TODAY does not endorse any of the products or services named within. This program is being sponsored by Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. and AstraZeneca. The speaker is being compensated for the presentation. The program is not CME accredited and may not be used for CME accreditation.
Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY
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A killer app comes out of the crowd
July 2019—Twenty years ago, Ulysses Balis, MD, bought the domain name HistoQuery.org. He had realized that one day, digital pathology would be sophisticated enough to be incorporated into interactive, Web-based tools, so he did what any self-styled geek would do with such a nascent idea—he waited.
Close-up of HIV-2 qualitative RNA and viral load testing
July 2019—Qualitative HIV-2 RNA testing to resolve discordant HIV-2 results may be warranted but seldom results in confirmation of HIV-2 infection, Linda M. Styer, PhD, illustrated with data at the 2019 HIV Diagnostics Conference in March.
Letters
July 2019—We thoroughly enjoyed the article by Anne Paxton, “Microscopy’s dangers: From wear and tear to disabling injury” (April 2019). This is an underrepresented topic in the pathology world. I have been practicing for nearly 11 years; we are a group of 13 pathologists including part-time and full-time pathologists. Two female senior pathologists in our group underwent neck surgery less than a year apart owing to years of accumulated trauma.
In memoriam
July 2019—Elizabeth R. Cary, MD, state commissioner for Mississippi for the CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program, died on May 31 at age 81.Dr. Cary was the chief of clinical pathology at the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center in Jackson, Miss. In 1994, the CAP appointed Dr. Cary as Mississippi state commissioner. The following year, the VA appointed her as regional commissioner for the national VA system.
Hemostasis testing: What is the impact of direct oral anticoagulants?
July 2019—Prevention and treatment of venous thromboembolic disease is accomplished through the use of anticoagulant agents, which are prescribed for millions of Americans annually. A revolution in anticoagulant use has occurred over the last decade, as direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) were introduced to the market. The new agents have a number of advantages over warfarin, the traditionally administered oral agent, which is a vitamin K antagonist (VKA).
From CAP Press: In new book, a practical approach to renal biopsy
July 2019—New from CAP Press is Medical Kidney Diseases—Morphology-Based Novel Approach to Renal Biopsy, by Huma Fatima, MD, assistant professor and director of the renal pathology laboratory, Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham. It presents a simple and practical approach to renal biopsy by providing a pertinent differential diagnosis related to various patterns of injury involving renal parenchyma by light microscopy and reaching a correct diagnosis by assimilating immunofluorescence and electron microscopy findings. The 90-page book contains 66 cases, two of which we are reprinting here.
Puzzles, pearls: diagnosing interstitial lung disease
July 2019—Most fresh blood in lung wedge biopsies is artifact, but when it’s diffuse alveolar hemorrhage, the pathologist must call the clinician because DAH patients can go downhill fast. Maxwell L. Smith, MD, a consultant in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic Arizona and associate professor, Mayo Clinic School of Medicine, shared that pearl from one of the 10 consultation cases he and Brandon T. Larsen, MD, PhD, co-presented in their CAP18 session on diagnosing interstitial lung disease. Their discussion of two of those cases follows.
Chemistry and immunoassay testing: Standardizing platforms, ranges, interfaces—panel weighs in
July 2019—One vendor or two. Automating esoteric testing. The desire for more smart systems. The need for analytics. Seven people spoke with CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle in May about chemistry and immunoassay testing. They are David Alter, MD, DABCC, of Emory University; Nina Babic, PhD, DABCC, of Medical University of South Carolina; Denise Pastore of Siemens Healthineers; Timothy Lenz, PhD, of Randox; Delena Carite of Roche Diagnostics; and Jessica Tubman, MPH, MT(ASCP), and Stephen Ishii, MT(ASCP), of Beckman Coulter. What follows is what they told us.
Put It on the Board
AMP bolsters position on consumer genomic testing
July 2019—The Association for Molecular Pathology revised its position for all consumer genomic testing. Based on a recent assessment of the current market landscape and privacy best practices, the latest position statement features an expanded list of conditions that must be met before the AMP can support a clinically meaningful test. The AMP remains neutral to all recreational, novelty, and ancestry testing that may create educational opportunities for the public. The expanded set of conditions is as follows: • All health-related claims must have well-established clinical validity. • The consumer genomic testing provider must comply with the CLIA statute and regulations. Test validation and interpretation should be performed by board-certified molecular laboratory professionals. • Information regarding the analytical and clinical validity of the tests should be present in all marketing materials and included in each report of results.