Direct oral anticoagulants—new guidance, lab testing
January 2026—The Association for Diagnostics and Laboratory Medicine released new guidance discouraging clot-based testing in patients receiving direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs).
Webinars and Sponsored Roundtables — Register Now
Thursday, May 28, 2026, 1:00–2:00 PM ET
This session is designed to improve understanding and application of recent updates to synoptic pathology reporting protocols such as the latest Reporting Template for Reporting Results of Biomarker Testing of Specimens from Patients with Carcinoma of the Breast. These changes reflect evolving clinical guidelines that directly influence diagnostic accuracy and treatment selection in breast cancer care.
Webinar presenters Thaer Khoury, MD, FCAP, Chair, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Cente, and Colin Murphy, CEO of mTuitive.
Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY
Tuesday, June 9, 2026, 1:00–2:00 PM ET
In this webinar, we will examine how immune recognition after allogeneic HCT can influence leukemia relapse and disease progression. The session will highlight the clinical relevance of HLA loss of heterozygosity (LOH), approaches used for its detection, and how LOH findings may support transplant strategies, including considerations for donor selection in subsequent transplantation.
Webinar presenter Alberto Cardoso Martins Lima, PhD, Clinical consulting scientist in histocompatibility,
specializing in allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) at IGEN/AFIP São Paulo and CHC/UFPR in Curitiba, Brazil
Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY
Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 12:00–1:00 PM ET
Hear an expert discuss the expanded clinical utility of HER2 IHC scoring in metastatic breast cancer and its impact on your practice
Webinar presenter Michelle Shiller, DO, AP, CP, MGP, FACP, Baylor University Medical Center.
Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY
Subspecialties
Interactive Product Guides
Coagulation
D-dimer reporting, INR among the variables that matter
August 2025—Anticoagulant interference, INR calculation, and D-dimer reporting are among the coagulation testing analytical and postanalytical variables that merit caution. Andrew Goodwin, MD, and Eric Salazar, MD, PhD, in a CAP24 session dug into why and what the requirements are, including for viscoelastic testing.
For coagulation labs, a deep dive into key testing variables
July 2025—The variables that affect coagulation testing are plentiful, from preanalytic to postanalytic. In a CAP course last year, the presenters walked through a handful that are central to patient safety.
Spectrum of anti-PF4 disorders widens
June 2025—For a relatively sleepy field of study, heparin-induced thrombocytopenia has produced more than its share of thrills in the past few years. HIT (sometimes called HITT, with the extra “T” denoting thrombosis) gave way to urgent discussions about vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, or VITT, at one particularly panicky point in the COVID-19 pandemic. Take another spin of the wheel: “VITT-like” is now primarily used to refer to cases in which patients have received neither heparin nor a vaccine. Even more recently, researchers have identified a new syndrome, referred to as monoclonal gammopathy of thrombotic significance (MGTS). Publications have put this disorder into three groups. “I think this is going to be the biggest thing in the thrombophilia field in a long time,” predicts Anand Padmanabhan, MD, PhD, professor, Mayo Clinic. Unlike HIT and VITT, MGTS is a chronic condition. “It may end up being part of a thrombophilia profile in the coming years.”
New accreditation POC requirements for coagulation testing
January 2025—The point-of-care checklist in the 2024 accreditation checklist edition, released Dec. 26, now includes requirements on coagulation specimen collection and handling.
Coagulation automation, from workflow to middleware
Automation in coagulation was the topic of a Nov. 11, 2024 roundtable led by CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle. Put it on a line or on a dedicated automation platform? Seven participants talked about that and about cybersecurity, viscoelastic testing, and the labor shortage, among other things.
Lupus anticoagulant—proficiency test and preanalytics
May 2024—What is a lupus anticoagulant (LA)? LA is somewhat of a misnomer. Many patients with this condition do not have systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and usually do not bleed. However, the in vitro phenomenon was originally described in patients with SLE, as well as other autoimmune disorders—thus use of the term “lupus,” and this does often lead to prolonged in vitro coagulation testing—thus use of the term “anticoagulant.”
The who, when, and why of thrombophilia testing
January 2024—Thrombophilia testing has been shown to be performed far more often than indicated in thromboembolic events, at significant cost to the patient and hospital.
Panelists on viscoelastic and other coag assays
January 2024—Viscoelastic assays and other coagulation tests were front and center when CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle on Nov. 20 convened seven people in an online roundtable. Oksana Volod, MD, and Eric Salazar, MD, PhD, and five company representatives weighed in on, among other things, appropriate test use, automation, and laboratory-developed tests. What they said begins here.
New guide to whole blood viscoelastic assays: hemostasis, testing, cases, and applications
October 2023—New this month from CAP Publications is Whole Blood Viscoelastic Assays in Clinical Diagnosis: An Illustrated Case-Based Guide. Viscoelastic testing was designed to determine the cause of intraoperative or trauma-related bleeding to guide hemostatic therapy. CAP TODAY asked the book’s editor, Oksana Volod, MD, about the guide. See her answers and a sample chapter. Dr. Volod is professor of pathology and director of the coagulation consultative service, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles.