LC-MSMS Troubleshooting Series 01

MSACL presents a series of four webinars on troubleshooting clinical LC-MSMS instruments and methods. LC-MSMS is being used with increasing frequency in clinical laboratories, but one of the challenges to wider adoption is the complexity of the technique and the lack of trained personnel to use it. These webinars use an interactive case history format to demonstrate to attendees how LC-MSMS problems were detected and overcome by faculty members from academic medical centers, county hospitals, reference laboratories, and regional health system core laboratories.

Slide Deck (PDF, 2.8 MB)

ACCENT CE Credit expires April 5, 2016

Learn the tools and strategies of LC-MSMS troubleshooting and work through cases found all too often during routine operation. Selected best practices for robust instrument operation, preventative maintenance and basic repairs are presented.

Learner Objectives:

1. list 3 troubleshooting tools for LC-MSMS,
2. create a calendar for LC-MSMS preventative maintenance,
3. describe checks to distinguish an LC problem from a Sample Preparation mistake from an MSMS loss of sensitivity.

Slide Deck (PDF, 0.6 MB)

ACCENT CE Credit expires April 12, 2016

A focus on cases from a Pain Management testing environment. Follow the investigation and solution of method development and quality assurance cases involving drugs that present intriguing analytical or pharmacologic challenges to monitoring for compliance.

Learner Objectives:

1. resolve discrepancies in proficiency testing
2. find ways to monitor drugs with poor fragmentation patterns
3. monitor drugs which are nearly completely metabolized
4. establish comparative criteria for drugs not in proficiency tests

Slide Deck (PDF, 1.5 MB)

ACCENT CE Credit expires April 19, 2016

Learn from the experiences gained at a large reference laboratory that was an early adopter of LC-MSMS and successfully executed high test volumes and sophisticated methods. Follow the painstaking inquiries necessary to solve devious and difficult cases that occurred with LC-MSMS testing for endocrine and other analytes. Quality measures that can detect or prevent subtle variance from normal method performance are reviewed.

Learner Objectives:

1. outline an overall strategy for troubleshooting problems in a clinical mass spectrometry lab,
2. explain the relationship between record keeping and troubleshooting in a clinical mass spectrometry lab

ACCENT CE Credit expires April 26, 2016

Cases are reviewed that range from simple human error during routine production, to evolution of method protocols to add robustness, to process improvements implemented to cope with too many specimens from a large clinical trial. The perspective of troubleshooting as a filter that can uncover issues to then address with quality improvement processes is highlighted.

Learner Objectives:

1. list basic approaches to LC-MS/MS trouble shooting
2. discuss common causes for LC-MS/MS assay problems
3. formulate strategies for LC-MS/MS troubleshooting, and converting them to QA processes.