Health Diagnostics & Diagnostic Revolutions
Published on: 2018/05/29
Zoya Brar, Co-founder & Director, CORE Diagnostics, Gurgaon, India
Abstract
The field of medical microbiology has taken several leaps to allow pathologists to diagnose infectious diseases and the pathogens causing them to a great detail. Rapid advances in immunology, molecular biology and chemistry have together made possible highly multiplexed assays which can determine the specific causes of a patient’s infectious disease through specimens of the blood, urine, sputum as well as stools.
Interest Category
health diagnostics, diagnostics, microbiology
Diagnostic industry
The diagnostics field has witnessed a lot of changes in the last 30 years. Today, around 70% of the medical decisions are supported by diagnostics. The innovative diagnostic technology has progressed from the time of MRI scanners to personalized DNA that allows doctors to make accurate predictions about the effectiveness of specific cancer drugs. The opportunities created by molecular diagnostics have led to the growth of the diagnostic sector and personalized therapy.
Today, there is a huge global challenge that stems from diseases that keep recurring. Research in molecular diagnosis has helped us understand the processes that affect human health. As a result, we have been able to develop tools that are now being used as standard care for treatment of many diseases.
New sequencing methods have provided answers to questions about diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. This has led to better outcomes and more savings.
The growth drivers in the molecular diagnostics market today are molecular tests for women’s health, infectious diseases, organ transplant testing, and oncology. The gap between research and clinical applicability can be closed by getting more stakeholders who can help grow the molecular diagnostic market.
Trends in the health diagnostics
We can now see trends emerging from the success of diagnostics which will lead to a positive impact on the lives of patients.
1. Diagnostic tests are getting less invasive and more targeted. Instead of an invasive procedure to diagnose lung cancer, today samples from blood test can detect cancer cells.
2. Diagnostics have become real time. With the use of monitoring devices, patients can be monitored continuously. Data collected can be sent to the physician for analysis. This makes treatment faster and more accurate.
3. Genetic testing will help us identify patients prone to certain disease. Patients can understand their own health risks better thereby helping doctors in personalizing treatments.
4. Artificial intelligence will help read scans better helping minimize diagnosis errors caused by human omissions.
5. Wearable devices will help in health monitoring and diagnostics.
The need and availability of genetic testing will affect every part of the medical market in future. Newer genetic markers will be introduced for problems mainly related to reproductive health, oncology, forensics, and transplant medicine.
Diagnostics will also become consumer-oriented by helping people know and manage their risks. Diagnostics with progress will lead us to a better understanding of what makes us healthy or unhealthy. It will provide knowledge of how we can change our behavior and lifestyles to keep ourselves healthy.