Meeting of the Working Group on Coagulation Secondary
Standards.
Chairman: Jane Lenahan
The annual meeting of this committee was held on 13 July, 2003 with 20 attendees.
The chairman opened the meeting with a status report on Lot 3. Since
our meeting of a year ago, a request for bids to manufacture lot 3 have been
sent to 11 companies. One bid has been received and another bid is scheduled
to be received within the next 2 weeks. Delivery from the manufacturer
will be requested for December 2003.
Dr. Hubbard reported on the status of lot 2: material shipped, present inventory
and stability. In the past 2 years, 18,796 1 ml vials have been dispatched
to 33 customers in 10 countries. The present inventory is 27, 261 vials.
The target for delivery of lot 3 will be moved up to December 2003 to allow
for one year for calibration. The target for delivery to the customer
presently is January 2005.
Dr. Declerck reported on a small evaluation carried out in his laboratory
to determine the feasibility of calibrating PAI-1 and tPA. The data
were positive and the committee agreed that more testing should be carried
out on lots 2 and 3 when lot 3 is available.
Dr. White brought up the need for improving the communications with the chairmen
of the subcommittees for input to the calibration procedure.
Dr. Kitchen discussed the need for publications on some of the very positive
data obtained on the SSC material in the laboratories of the Royal Hallamshire
Hospital and the NIBSC. The aim in the next year for Doctors Barrowcliffe,
Hubbard, Kitchen and Prentice will be a publication in the Journal of Thrombosis
and Haemostasis.
Dr. Gray reported on the aims of the Joint Committee of Traceability in Laboratory
Medicine. The Reference Materials nominated were WHO International
Standards and the ISTH/SSC Secondary Standards.