Malaysian J Pathol 2018; 40(2) : 213 – 265 The International Congress of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine 2018: Frontiers in Diagnostic Pathology, organised by the College of Pathologists, Academy of Medicine of Malaysia and was held at Connexion Conference & Event Centre – The Vertical at Bangsar South on 28-30 June 2018. Abstracts of K. Prathap memorial lecture, plenary, symposium and paper (poster) presented are as follows: K. PRATHAP MEMORIAL LECTURE: EVOLUTION AND ADVANCEMENT OF BREAST CANCER MANAGEMENT: THE PATHOLOGIST’S CONTRIBUTION Jane Dahlstrom College of Health and Medicine at the Australian National University (ANU). Anatomical Pathology at ACT Pathology, The Canberra Hospital Breast cancer management is an inevitable intertwining between multiple disciplines. Pathologists remain largely responsible for making the diagnosis that determines a patient’s management and prognosis. Simple morphology based classifications and tumour grading are now being complemented by exploration of disrupted cell pathways with the use of immunohistochemistry and molecular techniques that enable us to better predict cancer progression and response to treatment. This talk will explore how our understanding of breast cancer has evolved and how this has been central to the evolution and advances in breast cancer management. PLENARY 1: RISK ASSESSMENT Wong Moh Sim Department of Laboratory Medicine, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Singapore. Risk management is defined as ‘the systematic application of management policies, procedures and practices to the tasks of analysing, evaluating, controlling and monitoring risk’ (ref: ISO). Healthcare organisations have a responsibility to ensure the health and safety of their staff and their patients. Risk assessment is an integral part of an organisation’s occupational health and safety management plan and enables organisations to make an informed decision on the necessary measures needed to eliminate or minimise the risk of harm to those who may be affected. Risk assessments should be done before new processes or activities are introduced and before changes are introduced to existing processes or activities. A risk assessment involves risk identification (recognition of hazards and risk factors), risk analysis and evaluation (assessment and characterisation of the hazards and determination of the level of risk) and risk control (determination of appropriate ways to eliminate the hazard or control the risk when the hazard cannot be eliminated).Once the risks have been identified, the organisation must implement control processes as well as continuously monitor and modify them, to ensure that risk is maintained at a clinically acceptable level. Clinical laboratory tests must be accurate and reliable as they account for over 70% of medical decisions. In the clinical laboratory, errors can occur at any stage in the laboratory testing process and harm can occur to patients, laboratory staff and hospital staff. Clinical laboratories must conduct a comprehensive risk assessment to identify vulnerabilities in the pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical aspects of laboratory testing. Guidelines from agencies such as the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) are available to assist clinical laboratories on risk assessment, including how to develop, implement and maintain a quality control plan for medical laboratory testing, so as to mitigate potential errors that can occur during the laboratory testing process. PLENARY 2: THE BIOLOGICAL AND CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF STROMAL-EPITHELIAL INTERACTIONS IN BREAST CANCER Jane Dahlstrom College of Health and Medicine at the Australian National University (ANU). Anatomical Pathology at ACT Pathology, The Canberra Hospital There is increasing evidence that an aberrant tumour microenvironment facilitates cancer development, progression, and responses to treatment. This talk discusses recent advances in our understanding of how cancer epithelial cells interact with their microenvironment and how this knowledge can be exploited clinically. 213 Malaysian J Pathol August 2018 PLENARY 3: VIRAL HEPATITIS: THE WAY FORWARD Yasmin A Malik Medical Microbiology Department, University of Malaya Medical Centre. In 2015, the global prevalence of HBV infection was 3.5% with 257 million living with HBV infection. Most of the burden of disease from HBV infection comes from infections acquired before the age of 5 years. Since the availability of the HBV vaccine in 1982, it has been 95% effective in preventing infection and the development of chronic disease and liver cancer. When the World Health Assembly recommended the inclusion of hepatitis B vaccine in the EPI in 1992, coverage in infants increased from 1% in 1990 to 84% in 2015. In a continuous effort to further improve seropositivity and compliance, new HBV vaccine formulations have been produced. With regards to management of chronic hepatitis B patients, serum HBsAg quantification is increasingly being used to predict disease activity and monitor treatment response in chronic hepatitis B. Even so, it is not a substitute for HBV DNA. With improved understanding of the relative roles of cccDNA and integrated HBV DNA, new light has been shed on the interpretation of HBsAg levels in different phases of chronic hepatitis B. The recent ability to measure serum Hepatitis B core related antigen (HBcrAg) also allows one to monitor the natural course of chronic HBV infection and possibly predict HBeAg seroconversion. With regards to hepatitis C in 2015, an estimated 71 million persons are chronically infected, with an overall global prevalence of 1.0%. The continuous evolution of screening tests for HCV infection has now resulted in the availability of the 4th Generation assays that detect both anti-HCV and HCVcAg. The assays helped increase the sensitivity and shorten the window period between onset of HCV infection and detection of anti-HCV by almost one week. However, these assays cannot differentiate HCV exposure from chronic HCV infection. The use of HCVcAg test alone may also be applied as a one-step screening test since HCVcAg appears earlier than anti-HCV. With regards to the future use of HCV genotyping, the 2016 WHO Hepatitis C treatment guidelines still provide recommendations on the preferred and alternative DAA regimens by HCV genotype. However, as pangenotypic regimens become more readily available, genotyping may no longer be required. Despite these recent advances, many who are infected with HBV and/ or HCV remain unaware of their infection & therefore frequently present with advanced disease & may transmit infection to others. The key reasons for the low rate of hepatitis testing include: limited facilities or services for hepatitis testing; lack of effective testing policies or national guidelines; complex diagnostic algorithms; and poor laboratory capacity & quality assurance systems. Even with scaled-up interventions, mortality due to viral hepatitis still increased by 22% from 2000 to 2015. Hepatitis B and C account for 96% of all hepatitis mortality. Thus, in 2016, the World Health Assembly endorsed the Global Health Sector Strategy on viral hepatitis 2016-2021 that calls for the elimination fo viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030 by reducing new infections by 90% and mortality by 65%. PLENARY 4: FROM DNA TO MOLECULAR MEDICINE - GENE THERAPY IS NOW John Rasko AO Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney. Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program, Centenary Institute. Cell & Molecular Therapies, Royal, Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. The field of genetics originally provided insights into disease pathogenesis. More recently genomic medicine has facilitated improved prognostication, reproductive choices and therapeutic drug options. The challenge of realising the full potential of genetic understanding has been in overcoming the hurdles of efficient gene therapy. Since the first human clinical trial using gene technology in 1989, there have been over 2400 approved clinical trials worldwide. A few dozen clinical trails have been undertaken in Australia representing just over 1% of the trials worldwide. The overwhelming majority of human clinical trials involves short-term gene expression or random integration of a therapeutic gene. Emerging technologies require controlled development in compliance with safety, regulatory and GMP requirements. More precise gene targeting tools were first described in the early 2000s. Targeted gene editing or replacement using Zinc Finger Nucleases or TALENS have been tested in about a dozen clinical trials since 2009. These include attempts to delete the CCR5 protein on T cells (completed 2015+) and therapeutic ZFN-mediated genome editing in mucopolysaccharidosis (recruiting 2016+) and the haemophilias (recruiting 2016+). The pace of clinical development has accelerated over nearly three decades of gene therapy. However within this context, its worth noting that the first ever (controversial) use of CRISPR to delete PD-1 in a lung cancer patient was administered in October 2016. Highlights in the clinical gene therapy field will be discussed with special reference to haemophilia, thalassemia, blindness and cancer. PLENARY 5: SCIENCE AND THE COURT OF LAW Roger Byard University of Adelaide, Forensic Science SA in Adelaide Numerous problems arise in the assessment of inflicted trauma as there is often little reliable experimental data to help in evaluating cases. Clinical manifestations may be nonspecific and histories may be unreliable and are often designed to