EULAR Course in Diagnostic Laboratory Testing 

This annual EULAR course is primarily intended to bring European rheumatologists in training closer to today's and tomorrow's diagnostic and prognostic laboratory techniques.

The programme consists of a "common trunk" (ANA, ANCA, ELISA, PCR diagnostics) and a special flavour programme taking into account local expertise. The course is intended to be a "wet" workshop, and after its completion, participants have a hands-on feeling for both traditional and frontline laboratory techniques aiming to help rheumatologists in their clinical practice. Besides, a mental hands-on feeling concerning the evaluation of parallel laboratory results for the same measure produced by diverse techniques is conveyed to the attendees. This knowledge is becoming increasingly important with the exponentially increased rate of introduction of new laboratory tests used for the same measure by different laboratories and in different countries.