Jan 13, 2016 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations
Recently-announced partnerships want to use big data to improve patient outcomes and lower costs; clinical laboratory test data will have a major role in these efforts
In the race to use healthcare big data to improve patient outcomes, several companies are using acquisitions and joint ventures to beef up and gain access to bigger pools of data. Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers have an interest in this trend, because medical laboratory test data will be a large proportion of the information that resides in these huge healthcare databases.
For health systems that want to be players in the healthcare big data market, one strategy is to do a risk-sharing venture with third-party care-management companies. This allows the health systems to leverage their extensive amounts of patient data while benefiting from the expertise of their venture partners. (more…)
Jan 8, 2016 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Pathologists will be interested to learn that this latest version of the acoustic tweezer device requires about five hours to identify the CTCs in a sample of blood
Medical laboratory leaders and pathologists are well aware that circulating tumor cells (CTCs) released by primary tumors into the bloodstream are fragile and easily damaged. Many studies have sought to find ways to separate CTCs from surrounding cells. Such a process could then be used as an early-detection biomarker to detect cancer from a sample of blood.
One team of researchers believe it has a way to accomplish this. These researchers are using sound waves to gently detect and isolate CTCs in blood samples. In turn, this could make it possible to diagnose cancer using “liquid biopsies” as opposed to invasive conventional biopsies.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in collaboration with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) have developed a method for using acoustic tweezers and sound waves to separate blood-borne cancer cells from white blood cells. The research team believes this new device could one day replace invasive biopsies, according to a CMU article. (more…)
Jan 28, 2015 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Innovative device uses acoustic sound waves to gently separate circulating cancer cells from white blood cells
In many respects, the ability to separate and identify circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is one of the holy grails of cancer diagnostics. It is widely believed that a clinical laboratory test that can effectively identify CTCs would contribute to earlier detection of cancer and improved outcomes for caner patients.
Pathologists will be interested to learn about a useful new tool that can flag circulating tumor cells. Researchers say that this approach enables them to determine if a cancerous tumor is going to spread, without tagging tumor cells with harsh chemicals. This gentler alternative to current diagnostic methods involves an innovative device that uses “tilted” sound waves to sort tumor cells from white blood cells, noted a report in Headlines & Global News.
This device is about the size of a cell phone. It was developed by a team of scientists from the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).
Their research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The research study was published by PNAS, the journal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, January 5, 2015. (more…)
