European Scientific foundation for Laboratory Hemato Oncology (ESLHO)
The objectives of ESLHO are to promote the continuous innovation and standardization of laboratory diagnostics focused on lymphoid malignancies, as well as to facilitate quality control and education in this field.
The objectives are realized by:
- Supporting the organization of scientific meetings for the innovation/research, standardization and clinical validation of new tools, technologies and strategies for diagnosis of hematological malignancies and immune monitoring;
- Organizing educational sessions and symposia, and developing educational materials;
- Developing and promoting the use of standardized protocols;
- Organizing (external) quality assessment rounds for which a certificate of participation and performance is provided.
ESLHO supports three scientific Consortia that implement these activities:
- EuroFlow (www.euroflow.org)
- EuroMRD (www.euromrd.org)
- EuroClonality (www.euroclonality.org)
The EuroFlow Consortium aims to develop and standardize fast, accurate, and highly sensitive flow cytometric tests for diagnosis, classification and monitoring of hematological malignancies and primary immunodeficiencies and the evaluation of treatment effectiveness via immune monitoring.
The EuroMRD Consortium has developed guidelines for the interpretation of RQ-PCR MRD and NGS-MRD data. These guidelines ensure identical interpretation of MRD data between different laboratories that use the same MRD-based clinical protocol. Furthermore, the EuroMRD guidelines facilitate the comparison of MRD data obtained with different treatment protocols, including those that evaluate new drugs, where MRD might be used as primary endpoint.
The EuroClonality Consortium develops novel PCR-based methods that allow detection of gene rearrangements to be used for discrimination between normal and abnormal/malignant lymphoproliferations. The EuroClonality-NGS Working Group is part of the EuroClonality Consortium. Its purpose is to research and set standards in IG/TR NGS methodology and its applications in hemato-oncology, hematology and immunology.
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