Latest Technologies for Disease Identification and Diagnosis
Lakshmi V Ramanathan,
Service Chief/Clinical Chemistry Service,
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Development of innovative technologies in disease identification is the cornerstone of effective treatment and therapy. The journey from the laboratory bench to the bedside is indeed a long one and sometimes over several decades. The road map has several stops and detours involving a collaborative effort of research and development, academia, industry, regulatory affairs, the clinical laboratory, the physician and medical staff and finally the consumer who is the patient. As this road is travelled, the end product may not be exactly the way it was developed on the lab bench. We will examine this in the context of evidence based laboratory medicine.
The impact of advances in technology and informatics has a very important role in the standardization of methodologies. An example in this context is tumor marker standardization that is extremely important in the care of cancer patients as the values of a tumor or bio marker are often different depending on the methodology. Once methods are standarized, studies involving interfering substances, limitations and reference ranges need to be completed. Interpretation of these results by the clinical care team is linked to the treatment of the patient and overall outcome that needs to be appreciated.
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