Abstract
This year marks the publication of volume 50 of the Annals and you will have noticed our celebratory cover. By happy coincidence this year also marks the 60th anniversary of the Association for Clinical Biochemistry. In the first newsletter of the Association of Clinical Biochemists in February 1954, the then President N Maclagan wrote ‘It is hoped that the Newsletter will appear regularly and … provide a useful medium for the exchange of views and for the propagation of new ideas … It may also well form a nucleus from which a future journal of the Association might grow.’ This vision quickly came to fruition. In May 1960 the Editor of the Newsletter, H Varley, announced that its name was to be changed to the ‘Proceedings of the Association of Clinical Biochemists’ and that, in addition to articles currently included in the Newsletter, it should include preliminary communications for publication.
And so the first volume of what later became the Annals was published. By then the President was CP Stewart and in the introduction to the first issue he wrote ‘A scientific or professional society without a journal of some kind is severely handicapped in trying to fulfil its aims’. 1 Fifty or so years later we can reflect that the Journal has been successful in promoting both the aims of the Association and of the broader clinical biochemistry community. The Journal has come a long way from its early days. Many of the earlier volumes largely reflect outputs from regional and national scientific meetings of the Association, offering fascinating insight into the nature of the work of clinical biochemists in those earlier days.
In 1969 volume 6 was published for the first time with its current title ‘Annals of Clinical Biochemistry (formerly Proceedings of the Association of Clinical Biochemists)’ under the editorship of DN Raine. It continued to publish meeting reports but also technical and clinical evaluations and review articles. Examination of early issues can show us just how far we have, and in some cases have not, come. In 1961 MG McGeown reviewed the laboratory investigation of hyperparathyroidism, recognized as ‘… a relatively common disease … [with] its most prevalent clinical presentation [being] renal calculi’. 2 Twelve such tests were considered, including the calcium infusion and phosphate deprivation tests, but parathyroid hormone (PTH) measurement was not even on the horizon. The author concluded that, with the exception of serum calcium measurement, none of the tests considered had a role in the diagnosis of hyperparathyroidism. A 1970 review of laboratory tests in the differentiation of hyperparathyroidism from other causes of hypercalcaemia 3 describes the recent development of a radioimmunoassay for PTH but notes concerns that it does not always discriminate between those with and without primary hyperparathyroidism. The authors conclude that PTH measurement may in the future become the definitive test in this condition, avoiding unnecessary surgical exploration, identification and biopsy of the four parathyroid glands. By 1988, early evaluations of two-site immunoradiometric assays for ‘intact’ PTH begin to appear, including DJ Newman and JP Ashby's paper in the Annals. 4 Discrimination between individuals with primary hyperparathyroidism and those with non-parathyroid hypercalcaemia was remarkably good. This was in many ways the heyday of PTH testing. While these assays revolutionized the diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism we have subsequently learnt of their severe limitations in the management of secondary hyperparathyroidism due to kidney disease. In 2012, Almond et al. 5 described more than threefold variation in the PTH results produced by widely used commercial assays when testing uraemic sera. In the coming decade we envisage publishing more data from studies that have used so-called third generation assays for PTH: truly specific, as far as we currently know, for the intact molecule.
My own first issue of the Annals in January 1985 included two articles on the use of glycated (‘glycosylated’) haemoglobin as an alternative to the glucose tolerance test for the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus.6,7 Both sets of authors used an electrophoretic and densitometric scanning approach to total HbA1 measurement at a cost then of £1 per test. An HbA1 value greater than 9% achieved good specificity but poor sensitivity for diagnosing diabetes. Both studies called for outcome studies to establish the impact of more minor increases in HbA1. More than 25 years later diagnosis based on HbA1c has of course now become a reality, using automated (and cheaper) methods with international standardization.
The Annals continues to and always has published review articles commissioned by the Association. These have been of immeasurable value to both trainees and senor staff with responsibility for laboratory services. There can be no doubt that the guidance these reviews have provided has influenced professional practice for the better. My same 1985 first issue carries a review of progesterone assays: 8 we would do well to apply the stringent and scientific acceptance criteria described to our assays today, although of course all laboratories were then using radiolabelled methods.
All readers will have their own memories of particular Annals papers. During 2013 the Editors of the Annals will contribute to a mini-series, ‘Observations from the Archives’, in which they will each describe particular selected papers from the past 50 volumes that have interested or influenced them. The series begins in this issue with an article by Dr Maurice O'Kane who examines the development of point-of-care testing through the pages of the journal.
We will be celebrating the golden anniversary in several other ways. We have an agreement for the January issue of Annals to be free access through 2013. This is in addition to other free access initiatives that we have introduced over the past year including making editorials freely available. During 2013 the Journal will be moving to a new mobile optimized website to facilitate easier and more convenient access. We have a long-term plan to digitalize the entire Annals back catalogue and make this available via the Journal's website.
It is my privilege to be Editor-in-Chief of the Journal as it reaches its 50th volume. I hope and trust that the Journal will continue to serve our readers and the profession for another 50 years.