Cardiovascular disease caused by atherosclerosis is the leading cause of morbidity in Western Countries [1]. It involves the hardening and narrowing of vessels in the systemic system. The process originates from the build-up of fatty deposits through a process known as atherogenesis. If the build-up increases, plaque rupturing may occur leading to myocardial infarction [2].
The mission of The National Lipid Association (NLA) is “to enhance the practice of lipid management in clinical medicine.” NLA advocates advancing the current lipid testing profile as the traditional panel consists of testing LDL cholesterol (LDL-C), HDL cholesterol (HDL-C) and triglycerides, which only detects approximately 20 % of all atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease patients. Advanced lipid testing is recommended to optimize patient treatment [3].
Offering a total solution for lipid and cardiac risk testing, Randox has developed novel and superior performance markers to identify the true weight of lipid profiling. Its range of niche and superior performance assays comprises 13 assays including: small dense LDL-C (sdLDL-C), Lipoprotein (a) (Lp(a)) and HDL3-C.
sdLDL-C will more readily permeate the inner arterial wall having a lower affinity to the hepatic LDL-C receptor which circulates in the blood longer and more susceptible to oxidation.
As sdLDL-C is particularly atherogenic, a person with elevated sdLDL-C levels has a 3-fold increased risk of myocardial infarction [4].
Elevated Lp(a) levels are associated robustly and specifically with increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. The unique Randox Lp(a) assay is one of the only methodologies on the market that detect the non-variable part of the Lp(a) molecule which suffers minimal size related bias.
HDL3-C is the scavenger of cholesterol within arterial walls and if HDL3-C levels are significantly depleted, the ability to remove this cholesterol is reduced. Therefore, it is widely accepted that there is an inverse correlation between HDL3-C and CVD risk.
It is necessary to review the traditional lipid testing panel, enabling clinicians to gain a more comprehensive view of a patient’s CVD risk and therefore take the appropriate
measures to prevent CVD related deaths.
References
1. Burnett JR. Lipids, lipoproteins, atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Clin Biochem Rev 2004; 25(1): 2 [cited: 3 December 2018]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1853363/.
2. Zimmermaann KA. Circulatory system: facts, function & diseases. Live Science [Online] 16 March 2018 [cited: 3 December 2018]. https://www.livescience.com/22486-circulatory-system.html.
3. National Lipid Association. National Lipid Association releases updated recommendations on the use of PCSK9 inhibitors at the 15th Annual Scientific Session. [Online] no date [cited: 3 December 2018]. https://www.lipid.org/nla/national-lipid-association-releases-updated-recommendations-use-pcsk9-inhibitors-15th-annual.
4. Austin MA, Breslow JL, Hennekens CH, Buring JE, Willett WC, Krauss RM. LDL subclass patterns and risk of MI. JAMA 1988; 260(13): 1917–1921.
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Beckman Coulter announced early May that the latest addition to its automation portfolio, the DxA 5000 total laboratory automation solution, has achieved European CE Mark and China Food and Drug Administration approval. In today’s healthcare environment, laboratories are highly focused on enhancing patient care by driving faster turnaround time, delivering quality results and improving laboratory operations. The DxA 5000 helps laboratories meet these challenges through a collection of patented innovations that deliver rapid and consistent turnaround time, provide a new level of comprehensive pre-analytical sample quality detection, and reduce the number of manual processing steps to significantly improve laboratory efficiency.
Reporting results faster to physicians can positively impact patient outcomes. In the laboratory, specimen centrifugation is typically the most time-consuming pre-analytical activity. The DxA 5000 sets a new standard by utilizing a universal centrifugation protocol that significantly reduces the pre-analytical processing time by up to 73% for connected analysers across multiple disciplines.
Additionally, the DxA 5000 supports laboratories in delivering highly consistent turnaround time to their physicians. Leveraging first-of-its-kind dynamic system software, the DxA 5000 utilizes Intelligent Routing to bring automated patient-centric workflow to the laboratory. By understanding the tests requested, sample volume available and real-time analyser capacity and status, the DxA 5000 continuously calculates the most expeditious route for every patient sample – both STAT and routine.
Research shows errors that occur in the pre-analytical phase of testing may contribute up to 75% of erroneous test results, with 26% possibly having adverse effects on patient care.  Moreover, a vast majority of the factors causing erroneous results occur outside the laboratory, including inadequate volume, mislabeled samples and incorrect tube type. The DxA 5000 is designed with a sharp focus on sample quality assessment, screening each sample at multiple points to help laboratories substantially reduce the risk of errors. In three seconds, the system detects patient tube parameters such as volume, sample identification, tube type, cap colour, orders pending and tube weight. The system is also designed to check for sample volume at three separate points: pre-centrifugation, post-centrifugation and prior to sample storage to continually ensure sufficient volume is available for the tests ordered. Together, these quality assessments reduce the potential for release of erroneous results and can help accelerate time to result by quickly alerting the laboratory when a new patient sample is needed.
In addition to improving sample quality, laboratories also require workflow solutions that help them manage high volumes of outpatient, outreach and network samples, while processing urgent requests for both patient wards and emergency departments. The DxA 5000 simultaneously manages high volumes of multiple discipline requests, with a large variety of patient sample tubes and sizes, without impact to overall system throughput or STAT turnaround time. By automating sample processing steps, the DxA 5000 supports laboratories in delivering a higher number of results per hour with the same staffing level.
Based on research and work performed with the company’s laboratory partners, sample processing steps are shown to make up approximately 70% of a laboratory’s labour hours. The DxA 5000 significantly reduces the number of manual steps in sample processing to as few as one. From sample accessioning and quality assessment to add-on test management and sample disposal, the DxA 5000 enables laboratory professionals to deliver high-quality results and improve efficiency, empowering them to focus their efforts and skills on managing patient sample exceptions.
The first in a suite of DxA systems currently in development, the DxA 5000 enhances Beckman Coulter’s comprehensive portfolio of scalable solutions and is a key component of its vision to bring workflow automation to laboratories of all sizes.
Beckman Coulter has received purchase orders for more than 20 DxA 5000 systems across multiple countries where regulatory clearance has been achieved.

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Featuring an ergonomically enhanced, novel industrial design complemented by a wide range of rotors, the Thermo Scientific general purpose Pro Centrifuge Series has been developed to deliver a safe and regulatory-compliant benchtop separation solution to meet an array of application needs, from clinical protocols and cell culture procedures to microplate processing. The series has been equipped with an advanced touchscreen interface that gives users easy access to prestored protocols, temperature control and system health checks to improve productivity and reduce time spent performing manual maintenance. The general purpose Pro Centrifuge Series provides scientists with: a unique glass touchscreen that facilitates a simpler user interface for immediate, effortless workflow and operation monitoring, and easy cleaning; an ergonomically enhanced industrial design that enables the quick and safe change of any of its 19 rotor types in just three seconds through its Auto-Lock rotor exchange function; superior sample capacity, performance and bio-containment through its Fiberlite carbon fibre rotors and ClickSeal biocontainment lids; a compact separation solution fea-turing connectivity-ready technology, while optimizing benchtop space. The ge-neral purpose Pro Centrifuge Series meets global compliance standards and includes the Thermo Scientific Sorvall, Thermo Scientific Multifuge and Thermo Scientific Megafuge configurations, which can be easily configured with a selection of rotors to address a range of application needs.
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