Biochemistry special tests seen as key growth area by Biosystems
Laboratory medicine is one of the major supporting areas of healthcare management. Though representing less than 2% of health expenditure, it affects over 70% of clinical decisions which are taken based on laboratory results and this trend is even growing in the last decade. One of the drivers of this increased significance is a better understanding of the different roles that proteins, enzymes, substrates and electrolytes playsin keeping the organism in healthy state, and how some imbalances in their normal levels could become predictors of future diseased states. This has led in the last few years to develop a number of highly specialized tests focused on uncommon parameters, often referred to as esoteric tests or special tests. Accounting for about 15% in the value of all tests performed in the field of biochemistry testing, but just 2% in the number of tests, they are one of the key drivers of the expansion in the market, as new and more useful tests are proposed. Nowadays, they grow at a rate close to 15% in comparison with the paltry 1% of routine tests and a new business model has appeared for the laboratory as referral centre for those tests, gathering requests from other laboratories more focused on routine tests and for which implementing special tests in their menu is not cost-effective. Biosystems, as a leading manufacturer of reagents and instruments world-wide is also actively expanding into this area with a number of reagents that have been clinically accepted as valuable markers or monitors of several disease states. The menu of test includes parameters for cardiac risk assessment like homocysteine, that is associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction and venous thrombosis; urolithiasis recurrence management, with parameters like serum oxalate, associated with primary hyperoxaluria, or angiotensin converting enzyme, associated with sarcoidosis; the biochemical profile of fertility in seminal plasma, with parameters like zinc, associated with male infertility; or enzyme activity associated with some critical metabolic pathways relevant in emergency management, like aldolase (muscle weakness of several origins), beta-hydroxybutyrate (ketosis in diabetic patients) or lactate (lactic acidosis after a congestive heart failure). All of these tests are available for BioSystems’ automatic systems A15, A25 and BA400, but can also be adapted to many other common analysers in the market.
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