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Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery

General Information, Hemostasis/Coagulation

Reference Range Updates Coagulation Laboratory

Effective December 2, 2024 at 08:00 AM, Corewell Health West Laboratory Coagulation Department will be updating the reference range for several assays. The following will be impacted by these changes:

APTT testing for the BCS XP analyzers will be updating to 22.0 – 27.0 seconds.

This will include the following tests:


Effective December 2, 2024 at 08:00 AM, the Corewell Health West and South Coagulation Departments will be updating the reference range of the Fibrinogen Level (LAB 314) to 190-450 mg/ dL.


Questions may be directed to the Coagulation Laboratory using the Contact Us link above.

Microbiology

Sinus Culture Order Considerations

The management of sinusitis is often aided by bacterial and fungal cultures from which Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis, Staphylococcus aureus, and occasionally aerobic Gram-negative bacilli are the most commonly recovered pathogenic organisms. The Corewell Health West Microbiology Lab has several orders available for culturing sinus specimens collected as fluid aspirates, tissue, or swabs. Though more challenging to collect, aspirates are preferred over swab cultures that often grow mixed normal upper respiratory flora for which it is difficult to interpret the clinical significance.

Available Sinus Culture Orders Default Specimen Type Comments
Body Fluid Culture [LAB2111016]

Respiratory Culture [LAB3095]

Tissue Culture [LAB2111173]

Aspirated fluid

Swabbed collection

Tissue

For aerobic bacteria
Fungal Culture [LAB240] Aspirated fluid or tissue, preferred

Swabbed collection

For fungal organisms
Anaerobic Culture [LAB233] Aspirated fluid or tissue* For anaerobic bacteria

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Hemostasis/Coagulation

Update: PT/INR Resulting Change

The Spectrum Health Laboratory Coagulation Department announces the following changes occurring on 6.29.21 because of new instrumentation:

• New coagulation instrumentation will go-live on 6.29.21.

• This new instrumentation will align the Spectrum Health Regional Laboratory (in GR) with current Regional/Blodgett reportable upper limit for Protime/INR results.

• The current Protime (PT) upper limit of 120 seconds will change to 90 seconds. Any result that is greater than 90 seconds, will be reported as >90 seconds.

• The current INR upper limit of 12.0 will change to 8.0. Any result that is greater than 8.0 will be reported as >8.0.

Any questions can be directed to the Spectrum Health Regional Laboratory Coagulation Department using the Contact Us link above.

TEST INFORMATION 

PT/INR (Protime with INR): Epic Code #LAB320 | Interface code #10059 | CPT #85610