New Rapid Molecular Pathology Test for Tuberculosis Wins Favor with World Health Organization
Medical Laboratory Test Offers Improved Accuracy and Faster Time-To-Answer
It’s big news when an international health body endorses a new proprietary clinical laboratory test. That’s why pathologists will be interested to learn that, earlier this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) publicly recommended that nations incorporate a new rapid molecular test for tuberculosis into their disease testing programs.
The clinical laboratory test that the World Health Organization endorsed is the Xpert MTB/RIF test manufactured by Cepheid (Nasdaq: CPHD), the molecular diagnostics company based in Sunnyvale, California. The assay is a 100-minute rapid tuberculosis (TB) test. It is a fully-automated nucleic acid amplification test and WHO advised that the assay be introduced into clinical use under defined conditions as an integral part of a nation’s program to diagnose and treat TB and multi-drug resistant TB. (more…)