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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.
Educated Consumers Buying 250-Bioassay Lab Test Panel
CEO SUMMARY: Biophysical Corporation is creating a new, direct-to-consumer market for laboratory testing. Its unique approach is to offer 250-bioassay test panels—along with a staff physician review of results—to the educated, informed consumer. Testing multiple biomarkers ma…
When Does Cost Cutting Affect a Lab’s Quality?
CEO SUMMARY: Many lab professionals note the irony that a laboratory so publicly committed to Six Sigma quality management methods is now identified with the single largest episode of systemic failure in lab test accuracy. Looking in from the outside, some pathologists suggest th…
Vitamin D Test Expert Discusses Mass Spec
CEO SUMMARY: Those labs performing Vitamin 25(OH) D testing by mass spectrometry face an interesting challenge. For more than two decades, physicians, patients, and a majority of credible clinical studies have accepted RIA and IA Vitamin 25(OH) D results as a familiar standard. That is wh…
December 01, 2008 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”
Having grown to over $1 billion in revenue, Inverness Medical Innovations, Inc. of Waltham, Massachusetts, is newest of the in vitro diagnostics (IVD) companies to achieve size and scale. One of its more interesting products is an in-home system that allows …
Powerful Trends Reshaping Anatomic Path Profession
CEO SUMMARY: THE DARK REPORT presents its newest biannual review of macro trends reshaping the anatomic pathology profession. These macro trends reveal a profession undergoing change and transformation on multiple fronts. New competitors are crowding into the market, payers and accreditin…
Busy Year Demonstrated By Top Ten Lab Stories
CEO SUMMARY: As it turns out, 2007 has been an action-packed year with lots of events, plenty of changes, and the promise of even faster evolution across all sectors of the lab testing marketplace. THE D…
Emerging Global Trends in How Labs Are Using “Distributed Computing”
“In several different countries, laboratories already use ‘distributed computing’, in the form of a single LIS data center that provides informatics services to as many as 25 laboratories in a region. The trend is to increase interoperability and portability of the i…
Bringing You the REAL Story behind the Story!
HOW MUCH DO YOU TRUST THE NEWSPAPERS AND OTHER MEDIA you read to give you the right story, with the right analysis? If you are like me, you are regularly disappointed that the nation’s journalists are too quick to report the obvious—while often missing the important nuances that bring out the tru…
Newspaper Reports Miss on Molecular Technology
CEO SUMMARY: In reporting on a suspected outbreak of whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis), a national newspaper suggested administrators at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center had placed too much faith in molecular testing. In this exclusive interview, Dartmouth’s Director of Molecular …
New & Stefanelli Launch Anatomic Path Venture
CEO SUMMARY: With little fanfare, Aurora Diagnostics, Inc. opened for business last summer. It states that it has already signed acquisition agreements with five different pathology groups. Former AmeriPath executives James C. New and Martin J. Stefanelli are leading Aurora Diagnostics. H…
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Volume XXXI, No. 6 – April 29, 2024
Laboratory managers will want to note that The Dark Report itself was targeted by the fraudsters who hit Change Health in a cyberattack. Also, one lab has some innovative methods of combatting the chronic staffing shortage, including hiring college graduates and students.
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