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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.
How “Lean” is Benefiting Early-Adopter Laboratories
CEO SUMMARY: First steps toward a radical change in clinical laboratory operations are under way in a handful of early-adopter laboratories. This movement is so new that little information about their successes can be published. But the early evidence is compelling. For those labs willing…
Are Two Blood Brothers Using Economic Clout?
CEO SUMMARY: Quest Diagnostics Incorporated and Laboratory Corporation of America now dominate the national marketplace for testing referred by physicians’ offices. Release of their second quarter earnings reports provides the first look at their performance following the acquisitions i…
New Lab Management Directions Now Visible
CEO SUMMARY: Seat-of-the-pants laboratory management is on its way out, replaced by numbers-driven methods. Judging by the presentations given at this year’s Executive War College on Lab and Pathology Management, a growing number of laboratory administrators and pathologists are activel…
Why Patient Safety Is Change Agent for Labs
CEO SUMMARY: In the 1990s, managed care was the dominant change agent to the nation’s healthcare system. During the 2000s, it will be patient safety. However, unlike the unpleasant consequences of HMOs, capitation, and utilization risk, patient safety will prove to be a benevolent trend…
Royal Free Hospital Is First Big British Lab Automation Project
CEO SUMMARY: To date, only a handful of total laboratory automation (TLA) projects have been implemented in Great Britain. One of those first TLA projects is at the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead, located in the northern suburbs of London. Design work started in 1998 and the first phase b…
“Where’s The Beef?” AP’s AWOL at AmeriPath
REMEMBER THAT FAMOUS TELEVISION commercial from Wendy’s burger restaurants? The elderly lady scrutinizes a big hamburger bun that’s obviously short on meat and asks the seminal question “Where’s the beef?” In 1984, it was a catch line that captured the American imagination and was repeated…
New Trends in 2003 Affect Clinical Lab Services
CEO SUMMARY: Here’s our current list of macro trends that affect clinical laboratories, updated from the last list in January 2000. One bold prediction is that Medicare, as we know it, is on the verge of a major meltdown. Employers and consumers are also new forces to be reckoned with b…
Several Major Surprises Mark Events of 2002
CEO SUMMARY: It was a year when the two blood brothers got much bigger and expanded market share by buying their largest competitors. With patient safety as the goal, employers began active steps to force hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare providers to use quality management syst…
Docs’ In-Office Testing Showing Mixed Trends
CEO SUMMARY: Despite the burdens of CLIA certification and reduced reimbursement for lab tests, many medical practice experts are advising doctors to expand in-office testing. However, diagnostic technologies for near-patient testing are still not robust enough to support this trend. Earl…
Major Changes at Dade Behring Soon to Be Visible In Lab Market
Its recent financial restructuring now complete, Dade Behring prepares a “brand building” campaign CEO SUMMARY: Dade Behring is poised to become a tough and high-profile competitor in the laboratory diagnostics marketplace. Earlier this month,…
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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