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Introduction: in spite of the introduction of automated systems for urine sediment analysis, microscopy examination remains the gold standard. External Quality Assessment (EQA) programs on urine sediment are rare. This paper provides an analysis of results from 2012 to date of the EQA Italian program (Centro di Ricerca Biomedica, Regione Veneto) which involves today 255 laboratories. Methods: the EQA program includes four surveys/year. Participants are asked to identify and provide the clinical association of the presence of specific particles (2 surveys) and formulate the diagnosis of clinical cases presented (2 surveys). In 11 years, 202 images were proposed: 64 cells (9 types), 10 lipids (4 types), 59 casts (16 types), 36 crystals (13 types), 14 microorganisms (5 types), 19 contaminants (8 types) and 22 clinical cases were presented. Results: the correct identification rate (median; interquartiles) was very high for micro organisms (96.4; 91.9-99.9); high for crystals (92.2; 80.2-96.3) and lipids (91.1; 90.5-93.6); followed by casts (87.7; 80.1-91.8); contaminants (87.3; 77.2-96.0) and cells (82.8; 74.4-91.3). For clinical associations, the rate of correct answers was 96.5 (range 48.7- 100%). For clinical cases, due to the overall rate of particle misidentification throughout surveys, only 58.6% (44.9- 68.8%) of participants achieved access to clinical diagnosis. Of these, 92,0% (78.1-95.5%) were able to indicate the correct diagnosis. Conclusions: the program can be used as a tool to improve the identification of urine particles and the knowledge of their clinical significance and to encourage specialists of laboratory medicine to correlate urine findings with other laboratory data and the clinical history of the patient, an aspect that improves the value of the day by day work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antiviral drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 patients: applications of drug monitoring B M. Tempestilli b I UOSD Immunologia Cellulare e Farmacologia e UOS Professioni Sanitarie Tecniche i I Istituto Nazionale per le Malattie Infettive "L. Spallanzani" IRCCS, Roma. i In the last years, several studies on new and/or repurposing antiviral drugs were initiated to fight Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Continuing through the years to the present day we can see many examples of personalized therapy that are current practice today: hemopoietic stem cell transplantation, infectious diseases prophylaxis and treatment, GvHD biomarkers, targeted drug levels, pre-emptive therapy on specific molecular targets, integration of targeted therapy inside transplantation program both as bridging therapy and early maintenance post-transplant particularly in acute myeloid leukemia because of the several mutation recognized determining clonal heterogeneity and drug resistance. The POCT in the development of a clinical assistance network in proximity medicine B U M. Mele u , P. Coppolecchia b I Dipartimento Interaziendale di Medicina di Laboratorio, AUSL Modena i Point of care (POC) are tests conducted near the site of patient care, outside of laboratory, usually performed by patients or healthcare personnel not trained in laboratory medicine. Therefore, the monitoring of drug concentration of antivirals against SARS-CoV2 could be pivotal to optimise drug regimens, increase efficacy and avoid drug-related toxicity and to evaluate intra-individual variability and drug-drug interactions. [Extracted from the article]