SNPpets - short news spliced from the APFCB region

Contributed by Joseph Lopez, President, APFCB

12th APCCB Preparations

With less than 12 months to go before the 12th Asian-Pacific Congress of Clinical Biochemistry, Chris Lam, the APFCB Immediate Past President and I visited Seoul in early November to observe preparations. We were treated to an excellent briefing and much more by our Korean colleagues who appeared to be well advanced in their organisation of this congress. The wide-ranging scientific programme is almost complete. It will have 5 plenary speakers, two of whom will be from the APFCB region, two from Korea and one from Europe (details are given in the invitation letter from Professor WK Min, the Chairman of the Organising Committee). The APFCB will have a scientific presence by way of one of the plenary speakers and at least one society-sponsored symposium.
The congress will be held at the COEX in Seoul, a huge convention centre with an underground shopping mall, a subway station and a 5-star hotel attached to it. Support from the diagnostics industry has been encouraging with participation from most of the big names and many local companies. About 18 scholarships are expected to be offered for young scientists by the APFCB, the IFCC and the congress itself.

As ever, the APFCB Council will hold its triennial meeting at the congress, as will other APFCB and IFCC business meetings. APFCB member societies are urged to support this congress among their individual members. Look out for details in http://www.apccb2010.org. From what I have seen, this congress should be a very good one.

Reference Intervals Meeting, Osaka

Professor Kiyoshi’s reference intervals project, in which the APFCB is a partner, is perhaps only one of its kind in the world. The current study, which is the third in the series, has attracted much attention from outside the region. A meeting entitled “International Symposium on Joint Determination of Reference Intervals and Data Analysis for Evidence-Based Laboratory Medicine” was held in Osaka, Japan, on 25 September to discuss the results of the 3rd Asian Project on Reference Intervals. Samples were collected from a total of 3540 healthy individuals. Of these, 1456 subjects were from 9 cities outside Japan (Seoul, Beijing, Taipei, Tainan, Hong Kong, Macau, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta), and, 2084 were from 12 areas within Japan.

Representatives from participating laboratories and from Beckman Coulter Japan and BD Diagnostics, both of which provided support for the project, attended the meeting. Professor Ichihara, representatives from participating laboratories in Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Professor Kano made the presentations. I was honoured to be invited to present the keynote entitled “Perspectives on Common reference Intervals”. At the time of writing, data analysis is nearing completion. Expect a slew of publications next year.

An expanded version of this study is planned for 2010. It is expected to cover a wider geographical area and involve more subjects.

Lab Automation Conference, Kuala Lumpur

The AACC is known for the speciality meetings that it organizes within and outside the United States. The AACC-APFCB-M (Malaysian) ACB Laboratory Automation conference was held in Kuala Lumpur on 22 and 23 October. Of the six speakers, 3 were from the APFCB region, viz. Dr Leslie Burnett of Australia, Dr Sunil Sethi of Singapore and Dr John Hwan-Sub Lim from Korea while the remaining three were Americans, among who were including James Nichols and Charles Hawker. The meetings had 6 sponsors: Abbott, Beckman Coulter, Ortho-clinical Diagnostics, Sysmex, Siemens and Techo Medica (Japan). There were more than 155 participants who came from within and outside our region, including unlikely places like Nigeria and Greece. This is the first time that the APFCB has co-hosted a specialty meeting. We hope that it will not be the last.

CSLM is 30 year old

The Chinese Society of Laboratory Medicine (CSLM) celebrated its 30th anniversary in Beijing from 5-7 Nov 2009 with much fanfare. Chris Lam and I represented the APFCB at this event. Foreign speakers included the Presidents of the IFCC and AACC, Drs Graham Beastall and Barbara Goldsmith. Others from abroad included Professors Vic Blaton of Belgium, Nader Rifai, Gerard Siest and Mauro Panteghini who concluded his IFCC Visiting Lectureship to the APFCB region at this meeting. I had the pleasure of presenting the CSLM President, Dr Shang Hong, with a pewter plaque at the Opening. This enjoyable event, inter alia, showcased the performing talents of the CSLM’s own members, both young and old. The Chinese version of LabTests Online was launched at the event.

PAMET – the newest IFCC member

One of our newest members, the Philippines Association of Medical Technologists Inc. (PAMET) was elected as the 83rd member of the IFCC in November this year. With its election, 15 of the APFCB’s 16 members are now IFCC members.

PAMET is one of the APFCB newest members. It has an estimated membership of 10,000, with foreign chapters (branches) in the USA, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. This makes it one of the largest national societies of the APFCB.  

I was priviledged to atttend its 45th annual convention that was held from 25th to 27th November, at the grand 97-year old Manila Hotel, the oldest 5-star hotel in the Philippines (there is even a book on its history, on sale at the hotel). About 2700 participants attended the convention including members from PAMET’s overseas chapters. Pre-congress workshops were held on the 25th and the Opening ceremony on the morning of the 26th. It was a grand affair complete with a choir and ladies formally dressed in long evening gowns. One of the local newspapers carried a full-page newspaper advertisement on the convention, with messages from national leaders including the country’s President. The meeting was well supported by the local diagnostics industry. The social event that I attended was a delightful night to remember.

APFCB Publications

Any good scientific work should always end in a publication. Since the APFCB’s regional projects were launched a few years ago, it has been our aim that these should end in publicaitons in reputed scientific journals. To date, the APFCB has had three publications:

1. Ichihara K, Itoh Y, Lam CWK, Poon PMK, Kim J-H, Kyono H, Chandrawening N, Muliaty D and the Science Committee for the Asian-Pacific Federation of Clinical Biochemistry. Sources of variation of commonly measured serum analytes in 6 Asian cities and consideration of common reference intervals. Clin Chem 2008; 54: 356-65.
2. Shiesh S-C, Hsiao-Mei Wiedmeyer, Kao Jau-Tsuen, Vasikaran SD, Lopez JB and the Laboratory Management Committee for the Asian-Pacific Federation of Clinical Biochemistry. Proficiency Testing of HbA1c: A 4-year experience in Asian and Pacific Region. Clin Chem 2009; 55: 1876-80.
3. Vasikaran SD, Lai LC, Sethi S, Lopez JB, Sikaris KA. Quality of interpretative commenting on common clinical chemistry results in the Asia-Pacific region. Clin Chem Lab Med 2009; 47: 963-70.

Expect more in the future!