Apr 2, 2012 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Pathology
Clinical laboratory managers and pathologists may see more testing shifting to point-of-care
For years, advocates of carbon nanotubes have predicted that this technology can be used to improve the accuracy and speed of clinical laboratory tests. Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) now report that they have improved the speed at which a carbon nanotube-based bio-sensor can complete a diagnostic analysis.
Experts believe that advances in this area of technology will make it possible to perform routine point-of-care medical laboratory and pathology tests in minutes at a fraction of current cost.
The researchers at OSU used carbon nanotubes (CNT) to increase the speed of biological sensors. The news was posted on the university’s website. The OSU research team said that, when fully developed, the technology could eventually permit a physician to routinely and quickly perform medical laboraory tests in the office, enabling quicker diagnoses.
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Jan 25, 2012 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, News From Dark Daily
Genetic testing and molecular diagnostics will be essential to wider adoption of personalized medicine by nation’s physicians
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA—Here in Silicon Valley at the Personalized Medicine World Conference (PMWC), the role of clinical laboratory testing and anatomic pathology services was consistently recognized as essential in advancing this important healthcare trend. Yet, at the same time, few pathologists or clinical laboratory executives were in attendance.
Your Dark Daily Editor, Robert L. Michel, was here at PMWC this week to speak on the topic of how medical laboratories and pathology groups will be one primary—and important—channel for helping physicians adopt and use personalized medicine in their medical practice. In simplest terms, it is typically pathologists and clinical laboratory professionals who educate doctors about the availability of new clinical lab tests and how to use them in their practice of medicine.
In that role, the medical laboratory provides physicians with information on when to order these new assays, how to interpret the lab test results, and how to use those results to determine the most appropriate therapy. Yet, here at the Personalized Medicine World Conference, developers at biotech companies seem to be overlooking this long-established fact in the clinical care marketplace. (more…)
Dec 14, 2011 | Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
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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Dec 1, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Researchers at UCLA have published the foundation science to use saliva as the specimen for sophisticated diagnostic testing
Someday soon, when your dentist asks you to say “Ah”, he will then collect a saliva specimen and use a chairside point-of-care test (POCT) to screen you for any number of conditions and diseases. This is the goal of a research team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), who recently developed what they call the Salivaomics Knowledge Base (SKB). It is a web-based data management system dedicated to help clinicians use saliva as a diagnostic tool.
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Oct 20, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
New diagnostic protocols that use lactic acid test cut deaths from sepsis
Laboratory testing plays a key role in a new diagnostic protocol for sepsis that is saving lives at hospitals operated by Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Tennessee. Since implementation of this new sepsis protocol, patient outcomes have improved significantly.
Leadership at Methodist North Hospital (MNH) decided to adopt the protocol after reading a study by Emanuel Rivers, M.D., Ph.D., of Henry Ford Medical Center, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that establishes criteria for identifying these patients.
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