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SA Pathology Update May 2019

16 May 2019

Ferritin Restandardisation

SA Pathology currently measures ferritin concentrations on Roche Cobas instruments. Roche Diagnostics Australia has informed SA Pathology that a value reassignment has been performed for calibrator set points for the ferritin assay, to re-establish traceability to the WHO international standard and to account for a negative bias seen in this assay; particularly at the high end.

With this reassignment now in effect, ferritin results will be approximately 15-20% higher than previous results, particularly at the higher end of the assay. Please be aware that for the majority of your patients, this will not affect their current treatment.

A small number of patients that were previously identified as iron deficient may now have ferritin levels indicating very low normal levels.

For patients with iron overload conditions the recommended monitoring is the measurement of Transferrin Saturation and not Ferritin.

Further Information

If you have any queries regarding this change, please contact Dr Penelope Coates, Clinical Director, Chemical Pathology on telephone 8222 3391 or the Clinical Biochemist on-call on telephone 8222 3444.

Uploading SA Pathology Reports to My Health Record

As part of SA Health’s role with the new opt-out model for My Health Record including integration with, and expanded use of, the national system, on 22 May 2019, SA Pathology will commence the automatic upload of pathology reports to the My Health Record system for patients over the age of 18 - unless a patient has requested that a particular report must not be uploaded (withdrawal of consent).

A request to withdraw consent must be recorded on the pathology request form or electronic order form by the consumer or their healthcare provider.

If a patient requests to opt out of uploading of medical records including pathology results  to  My  Health  Record  clinicians  should  advise  their  patients  to  contact  My Health Record directly on 1800 723 471 or visit the My Health Record website on www.MyHealthRecord.gov.au

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