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Diagnostic technology
Diagnostic technology involves tests, assays and equipment that allow clinical labs to diagnose diseases. New diagnostic technologies are currently transforming both infectious disease testing and cancer testing. Rapid molecular tests, for example, make it possible for medical labs to deliver an accurate answer back to a referring physician in just hours—compared to the several days that are required for most long-standing microbiology test procedures.
Even more disruptive technologies include digital pathology and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Digital pathology is an image-based information environment that is enabled by computer technology to allow for the management of information generated from a digital slide. Digital pathology is enabled in part by virtual microscopy, which is the practice of converting glass slides into digital slides that can be viewed, managed, and analyzed on a computer monitor. With the advent of Whole-Slide Imaging, the field of digital pathology has exploded and is currently regarded as one of the most promising avenues of diagnostic medicine in order to achieve even better, faster and cheaper diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of cancer and other important diseases.
MALDI-TOF (matrix assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight) mass spectrometry allows clinical laboratories to identify small aerobic gram-positive bacilli more accurately, faster, and in a more cost-effective manner than ever. It enables the analysis of biomolecules (biopolymers such as DNA, proteins, peptides and sugars) and large organic molecules (such as polymers, dendrimers and other macromolecules), which tend to be fragile and fragment when ionized by more conventional ionization methods.
Even as pathologists are working to develop more sensitive and accurate diagnostic tests for cancer, similar efforts are underway in radiology and imaging. In fact, one research team has developed a self-assembling nanoparticle that can adhere to cancer cells, thus making them visible in MRI scans and possibly eliminate the need for invasive tissue biopsies.
Researchers have developed a self-assembling nanoparticle that targets cancer cells and makes them visible on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. The new nanoparticle improves MRI scanning efficacy by “specifically seeking out receptors that are found in cancerous cells,” according to researchers. Were this development to become a reality, it has the potential to alter anatomic pathology’s role in diagnosing cancer.
Eight Trends Reshaping Clinical Lab Services
CEO SUMMARY: Once again, THE DARK REPORT’S annual list of lab industry trends deals less with government regulation and influence on laboratory operations and more with the impact of new technologies and new management philosophies. Marketplace acceptance of these lab industry trends is…
DNA Diagnostics Market, Kaiser Permanente, TriPath Imaging, LifeScan
DNA DIAGNOSTICS MARKET GROWTH TO BE DOMINATED BY PCR TECHNOLOGY FOR THE YEAR 2000, total DNA diagnostic technology sales were estimated to be $517 million. By 2005, this number should increase to $771 million, a growth rate of 8.4% per year. This is the conclusion of Laura Roth, author of …
Competitive Dynamics In the Laboratory Testing Marketplace
This section of the White Paper deals with the marketplace for laboratory services. For brevity and clarity, I will address five components: 1) independent commercial laboratories; 2) hospital-based laboratories; 3) esoteric, reference, and specialty testing laboratories; 4) anatomic pathology lab- o…
Year’s Ten Biggest Stories Reveal Modest Changes
CEO SUMMARY: In many ways, 2000 was a relatively quiet year for laboratory organizations. This list of the ten biggest stories in the lab industry for 2000 demonstrates that the most innovative laboratory organizations in the United States are “raising the bar” for service and quality…
Prognostic versus Diagnostic Lab Medicine
MOST OF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE RACE TO DEVELOP effective laboratory tests and pharmaceuticals based on rapidly-developing genetic and molecular knowledge. We all ask the same question: when will my laboratory have to buy this technology and offer these new tests? For most of us, the answer is “…
Bill Bonello Sees Opportunities In Diagnostic Services Companies
CEO SUMMARY: With the clinical laboratory industry now enjoying growing interest by professional investors, THE DARK REPORT traveled to New York City to meet with financial analyst William B. Bonello, of U S Bancorp Piper Jaffray. Bonello co-authored a just-released overview of what he ca…
Market Hesitates to Embrace Automated Screening Products
CEO SUMMARY: Technology to enhance and improve conventional Pap smear screening was introduced into the clinical marketplace almost five years ago. But the clinical laboratory industry has yet to embrace these various technologies in any meaningful way. Like the introduction of liquid pre…
Neurology is Test Focus For Athena Diagnostics
CEO SUMMARY: There are few examples of laboratory companies focused on a single medical specialty,a business model that is expected to become more common in coming years. One such company is Athena Diagnostics. For 12 years, this company has concentrated on providing diagnostic testing fo…
Beckman Coulter’s Strategy Reflects Consolidation Trends
CEO SUMMARY: Rapid changes to the clinical laboratory industry had equally profound impact upon the major diagnostic companies. At Beckman Coulter, Inc., market forces triggered a decade of acquisitions and internal consolidation.The company looks very different today than it did ten year…
Columbia/HCA, AmeriPath, Epitope, STC Technologies, Quest Diagnostics
COLUMBIA/HCA GETS NEW NAME; ACQUIRES FOUR LONDON HOSPITALS NOW THAT IT HAS A SETTLEMENT with the federal government on civil claims of Medicare fraud, expect a rapid cascade of changes at Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation, the nation’s largest for-profit hospital company…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 6 – April 21, 2025
Now that a federal judge has vacated the FDA’s LDT rule, The Dark Report analyzes the judgement and notes the various steps the FDA could take in response. Also, lab testing at pharmacies is proving to be less successful than was once anticipated.
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