Aug 29, 2012 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Pathologists take heed! Teenagers are taking off-the-self technology and creating useful new clinical laboratory tests for cancer and other diseases
For the second time in recent weeks, a teenager has made national news for developing a medical laboratory test that can more accurately diagnose disease when compared to methodologies currently used by clinical laboratories and pathology groups. Pathologists and clinical chemists have good reason to ask what is different about the science taught in today’s high school compared to recent years.
The subject of our coverage today is a 17-year-old girl from Sarasota, Florida. She developed a computer application that detects breast cancer with 99% accuracy! It was on July 6 when Dark Daily e-briefing, told you about the 15-year old from Maryland who developed a diagnostic test to detect early-stage pancreatic cancer. (See “High School Student Develops Diagnostic Test to Detect Early-Stage Pancreatic Cancer”.) (more…)
Jul 18, 2012 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
New lab test market could open up if research findings lead to a useful clinical laboratory test that predicts prostate cancer recurrence
Over the past decade, clinical laboratory tests that can predict the occurrence or recurrence of breast cancer have opened up a profitable market for the companies that developed these technologies. Now, new research may become the basis of a useful medical laboratory test that could be predictive of prostate cancer relapse.
Of course, pathologists know that several years of further development and regulatory approvals will be needed before this research produces a lab test for clinical use that can reliably predict the recurrence of prostate cancer. What makes this development exciting is that there is a huge and untapped demand to help men with prostate cancer and their physicians make informed decisions about treatment options and long-term prognosis. (more…)
Dec 28, 2009 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Specialist physicians in Quebec question why the outside review of ER and HER2 breast cancer pathology test results used a 1% standard versus a 10% standard
Public debate in Quebec about inaccurate tests for breast cancer by the province’s pathology laboratories has turned attention to an area of pathology testing which is seldom discussed in public forums. It is the situation where there is often significant variability in rate of false positives and false negatives reported by different pathology laboratories performing the same tests for breast cancer and other diseases.
Quebec’s media coverage about problems with its pathology laboratories and inaccurate breast cancer tests was reported last week by Dark Daily in the e-briefing titled “PART ONE: More Debate in Quebec about How Pathology Labs Performed Inaccurate Breast Cancer Tests” . Here in Part Two, we describe how Quebec’s medical specialists are calling attention to another source of problems. This is how the use of various standards for evaluating breast cancer specimens can contribute to different rates of false positive and false negative results on pathology tests reported by pathology laboratories in the province.
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