Monographies on drugs, which are frequently analysed in the course of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Monographien über Medikamente, die regelmässig im Rahmen des Therapeutic Drug Monitorings analysiert werden

In 1995 the working group "Drug Monitoring” of the Swiss Society of Clinical Chemistry (SSCC) has already published a printed version of drug monographs, which are now newly compiled and presented in a standardised manner. The aim of these monographs is to give an overview on the most important informations that are necessary in order to request a drug analysis or is helpful to interpret the results. Therefore, the targeted audience are laboratory health professionals or the receivers of the reports. There is information provided on the indication for therapeutic drug monitoring, protein binding, metabolic pathways and enzymes involved, elimination half life time and elimination routes as well as information on therapeutic or toxic concentrations. Because preanalytical considerations are of particular importance for therapeutic drug monitoring, there is also information given at which time the determination of the drug concentration is reasonable and when steady-state concentrations are reached after changing the dose. Furthermore, the stability of the drug and its metabolite(s), respectively, after blood sampling is described. For readers with a specific interest, references to important publications are given. The number of the monographs will be continuously enlarged. The updated files are presented on the homepage of the SSCC (www.sscc.ch). We hope that these monographs are helpful for you handling therapeutic drug monitoring and look forward to comments of the audienc

Repositories for Taxonomic Data: Where We Are and What is Missing

AbstractNatural history collections are leading successful large-scale projects of specimen digitization (images, metadata, DNA barcodes), thereby transforming taxonomy into a big data science. Yet, little effort has been directed towards safeguarding and subsequently mobilizing the considerable amount of original data generated during the process of naming 15,000–20,000 species every year. From the perspective of alpha-taxonomists, we provide a review of the properties and diversity of taxonomic data, assess their volume and use, and establish criteria for optimizing data repositories. We surveyed 4113 alpha-taxonomic studies in representative journals for 2002, 2010, and 2018, and found an increasing yet comparatively limited use of molecular data in species diagnosis and description. In 2018, of the 2661 papers published in specialized taxonomic journals, molecular data were widely used in mycology (94%), regularly in vertebrates (53%), but rarely in botany (15%) and entomology (10%). Images play an important role in taxonomic research on all taxa, with photographs used in &amp;gt;80% and drawings in 58% of the surveyed papers. The use of omics (high-throughput) approaches or 3D documentation is still rare. Improved archiving strategies for metabarcoding consensus reads, genome and transcriptome assemblies, and chemical and metabolomic data could help to mobilize the wealth of high-throughput data for alpha-taxonomy. Because long-term—ideally perpetual—data storage is of particular importance for taxonomy, energy footprint reduction via less storage-demanding formats is a priority if their information content suffices for the purpose of taxonomic studies. Whereas taxonomic assignments are quasifacts for most biological disciplines, they remain hypotheses pertaining to evolutionary relatedness of individuals for alpha-taxonomy. For this reason, an improved reuse of taxonomic data, including machine-learning-based species identification and delimitation pipelines, requires a cyberspecimen approach—linking data via unique specimen identifiers, and thereby making them findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable for taxonomic research. This poses both qualitative challenges to adapt the existing infrastructure of data centers to a specimen-centered concept and quantitative challenges to host and connect an estimated $\le$2 million images produced per year by alpha-taxonomic studies, plus many millions of images from digitization campaigns. Of the 30,000–40,000 taxonomists globally, many are thought to be nonprofessionals, and capturing the data for online storage and reuse therefore requires low-complexity submission workflows and cost-free repository use. Expert taxonomists are the main stakeholders able to identify and formalize the needs of the discipline; their expertise is needed to implement the envisioned virtual collections of cyberspecimens. [Big data; cyberspecimen; new species; omics; repositories; specimen identifier; taxonomy; taxonomic data.]</jats:p

Role of procalcitonin and granulocyte colony stimulating factor in the early prediction of infected necrosis in severe acute pancreatitis

BACKGROUND—Infected pancreatic necrosis (IPN) is the main cause of death in patients with severe acute pancreatitis. Therefore an early prediction of IPN is of utmost importance.
AIM—Analysis of new blood variables as potential early predictors to differentiate between IPN and sterile pancreatic necrosis (SPN).
PATIENTS—64 consecutive patients with acute pancreatitis were enrolled in this prospective study; 29 were suffering from acute oedematous pancreatitis (AIP), and 35 from necrotising disease (NP) as diagnosed by contrast enhanced computed tomography.
METHODS—Procalcitonin (PCT) and granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) in the serum were examined and compared with C reactive protein (CRP). CRP was measured with a turbidimetric immunoassay (Autokit CRP; Wako, Osaka, Japan), and PCT and G-CSF by ELISA (Lumitest PCT; Brahms Diagnostica, Berlin, Germany; G-CSF-Elisa; R&D Systems, Abingdon, Oxon, UK). Monitoring was performed daily and related to the onset of symptoms.
RESULTS—Within the first week, all three variables (CRP, PCT, and G-CSF) were significantly higher in patients with NP than in those with AIP (CRP, p<0.001; G-CSF, p<0.001; PCT, p<0.001). During the course of the study, 12 of the 35 patients with NP developed late IPN after a median of 20.5 (range 3-49) days. Neither the peak nor the lowest concentrations during the monitoring period were of any value for predicting IPN (median peak values in SPN v IPN: PCT, 0.93 v 1.93 ng/ml; G-CSF, 347 v 421 pg/ml; CRP, 270( )v 325 mg/l).
CONCLUSIONS—Serum PCT, G-CSF, and CRP concentrations are of similar value for early differentiation between mild and severe acute pancreatitis. However, these variables are not suitable for the early prediction of IPN.


Keywords: pancreatitis; procalcitonin; granulocyte colony stimulating factor; C reactive protein; infected pancreatic necrosis; prognosi

Monographies on drugs, which are frequently analysed in the course of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring

In 1995 the working group "Drug Monitoring" of the Swiss Society of Clinical Chemistry (SSCC) has already published a printed version of drug monographs, which are now newly compiled and presented in a standardised manner. The aim of these monographs is to give an overview on the most important informations that are necessary in order to request a drug analysis or is helpful to interpret the results. Therefore, the targeted audience are laboratory health professionals or the receivers of the reports. There is information provided on the indication for therapeutic drug monitoring, protein binding, metabolic pathways and enzymes involved, elimination half life time and elimination routes as well as information on therapeutic or toxic concentrations. Because preanalytical considerations are of particular importance for therapeutic drug monitoring, there is also information given at which time the determination of the drug concentration is reasonable and when steady-state concentrations are reached after changing the dose. Furthermore, the stability of the drug and its metabolite(s), respectively, after blood sampling is described. For readers with a specific interest, references to important publications are given. The number of the monographs will be continuously enlarged. The updated files are presented on the homepage of the SSCC (www.sscc.ch)