Haematology are now offering assays to measure the new oral anticoagulant drugs Apixaban and Rivaroxaban. Both drugs are direct factor Xa inhibitors. Apixaban is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for the prevention of stroke and systemic embolism in people with non-valvular atrial fibrillation and at least one of the following risk factors: prior stroke or transient ischemic attack, age 75 years or older, diabetes mellitus, or symptomatic heart failure. Apixaban and other newer anticoagulants (dabigatran and rivaroxaban) appear equally effective as warfarin in preventing non-hemorrhagic stroke in people with atrial fibrillation and are associated with lower risk of intracranial bleeding. For further information please contact the laboratory on 0121 424 0908 (internal ext 40908) or for clinical advice please contact the On Call Haematologist via switchboard.

Routine Requests

Internal requests should be made using either the combined paper request form, for Haematology, Clinical Chemistry and Immunology, which should be filled out 'lottery style', or the Trusts electronic system for requesting and reporting, ICE, which can be navigated to from the Trust Intranet home page. For data quality purposes, Laboratory Medicine encourage all users to use ICE. GP requests should be made using the GP combined request form again using 'lottery style' tick boxes.

Click here for further information on completing request forms.

Routine results are avaliable the same day. Coagulation results for anticoagulation control will be available within 4hours of receipt in the laboratory. When abnormal results are detected, every attempt is made to contact the requestor. Where appropriate the Consultant Haematologist or registrar will contact the requestor direct with advice regarding patient care.

Sample Integrity

Poorly venepunctured blood samples can dramatically affect the results of a test. Some of the more common errors are listed below: