The Haematological Malignancy Diagnostic Service (HMDS) Integrated Diagnostic Course is a new innovative two-day course running twice a year.

This is an interactive, case-based course with interspersed micro-lectures to address all the aspects of haematological malignancy diagnostic testing, and is designed to simulate working in an HMDS setting and integrated reporting. The cases cover a wide range of myeloid and lymphoid neoplastic entities primarily involving the bone marrow. Each case will be available for participant-independent review of morphology (through whole slide imaging scans), immunophenotyping, histology, immunohistochemistry and genomic testing results. The participants will then be encouraged to determine the diagnoses followed by discussion with experts in the field. The interspersed lectures will discuss the different diagnostic test methodologies and their interpretation.

This course in aimed for any health care professional with an interest in haematological malignancy diagnostics, to include: haematology trainees and consultants, histopathology trainees and haematopathology/histopathology consultants as well as clinical scientists.

CPD points will be awarded to those who attend this course.

All cases will be discussed in a tutorial format, helping delegates to bring all these skills together and apply them practically to patient cases.

Catering will be provided throughout the course.

Draft Programme:

Day 1 – Thursday 23rd January 2025

08:45 Arrival and registration
09:15 Introduction
09:25 The principles of SIHMDS
How the HMDS works, and what goes into an integrated report
Introduction to the case reviews
10:00 Case review no.1
10:30 Coffee / Tea Break
11:00 Immunophenotyping
Principles of the assay with newer versions/platforms and application to cases
11.30 Structural Variants / Translocations
Understanding modus-operandi of the assays and what tests to do and when
11:55 Case review no.2
12:35 Copy Number Variants
What types of copy number aberration are there, and how do we detect them. Weighing pros and cons of different techniques
13:00 Lunch
13:40 Histopathology
14:05 Clonality & IGHV
14:25 Case review no.3
15:10 Coffee / Tea Break
15:25 Small Nucleotide Variants
15:50 Whole Genome Sequencing
What is WGS, when do we do it, and what results do we get
16:20 Case review no.4
17:00 End of Day 1

Day 2 – Friday 24th January 2025

08:45 Arrival
09:00 Case review recap
09:30 Future Developments
10:30 Coffee / Tea Break
11:00 Disease Monitoring
12:00 Case review no.5
13:00 Lunch
13:40 Review of all cases, recap and wrap up (1)
15:00 Coffee / Tea Break
15:20 Review of all cases, recap and wrap up (2)
17:00 End of Day 2

Pre-course reading materials will be offered to all registrants, from which we recommend individuals to focus on the aspects they are not familiar with ahead of attending the course.

Feedback from previous attendees:

"Really useful to be taught about the different tests which are performed in a diagnostic laboratory, also useful to go over what's currently available and what we might have access to in the future." - February 2023

"There was a good selection of cases which allowed for a broad understanding of how morphology, IPT and genomics contribute to a final diagnosis." - July 2023

“The "integration" of the case snippet all the way to WGS was the most impressive and positive part for me.” - May 2024

For any queries, please email khphaematology@kcl.ac.uk

Haematological Malignancy Diagnostic Service (HMDS) Course