News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel
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World’s First Bedside Genetic Test Provides Results in 60 Minutes without Need to Send Specimen to the Central Pathology Laboratory

Clinical trial demonstrated value of genetic point-of-care testing and a rapid time to result

Here’s a milestone in genetic testing that should catch the attention of pathologists and clinical laboratory managers everywhere. It is a point-of-care (POC) genetic test that is reliable enough to be used in a clinical trial.

The clinical trial was called RAPID GENE. It was conducted at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI). The study enrolled 200 patients who were being treated with cardiac stenting for an acute coronary syndrome or stable angina. What made this study unique is that—for the first time in medicine—it used a point-of-care (POC) genetic test. The genetic POCT was used to overcome many previous obstacles that had prevented use of more routine clinical genetic testing.
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Stanford Study Shows How Pathologists May Eventually Use the Whole Human Genome for Diagnostic Purposes

Researchers use patient’s whole genome to predict his risk for 55 different health conditions


For pathologists, the day draws ever closer when they will use a patient’s whole genome sequence for diagnostic purposes. That’s the implication from research being done at the University of Stanford Medical School where scientists recently made a leap forward in advancing practical application of the human genome to patient care.

Stanford researchers recently announced that, for the first time, a healthy person’s complete DNA was sequenced, then used to create an easy-to-use, cumulative risk report. This study model could catapult patient genomic analysis into clinical laboratories even as it adds personalized medicine to the doctor’s black bag of diagnostic tools within the decade. The Stanford study team reported these findings in a recent issue of Lancet.

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