Consumer Reports Identifies ‘Potential Pitfalls’ of Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Tests

At-home genetic test kits face scrutiny for providing information that may provide consumers with an incomplete picture of their genetic health risks and ancestry Genetic testing for disease risk and heritage are hugely popular. But though clinical laboratory and pathology professionals understand the difference between a doctor-ordered genetic health risk (GHR) test and a direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic test, the typical genetic test customer may not. And misunderstanding the results of a...

British Scientists Develop Urine Test that Can Quickly Reveal Health of a Person’s Eating Habits and Might Create New Markets for Clinical Laboratories

Since most patients do not accurately report what they eat, a new medical laboratory test could provide doctors and researchers with the ‘first independent indicator of the quality of a person’s diet’ It may soon be possible to measure the health of a person’s diet by use of a 5-minute diagnostic test recently developed by British scientists. The test can reveal the facts about how well a person eats and has the potential to find clinical value among medical professionals and in clinical...

Pathology Laboratories in the United Kingdom to Be Challenged by New Reimbursement Models and the NHS’ Latest Call for Faster Innovation

Pathologists and medical laboratory managers will take up these issues at the upcoming Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine Conference in Birmingham, England on January 29-30, 2013 Medical laboratory testing in the United Kingdom is experiencing change at an accelerating rate. These changes reflect ongoing reforms within the National Health System (NHS), which is itself dealing with increased demand for healthcare services in the face of limited budgets. That means providers in the United...
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