Quest Diagnostics Unveils Advanced Transplant Diagnostic Services Featuring Anywhere-Access in US

Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the nation’s top provider of diagnostic information services, has launched a comprehensive suite of advanced diagnostics and support services aimed at increasing access to laboratory tests for solid organ, human cell, and tissue transplantation.

Quest Advanced® Specialized Transplant Services offers a comprehensive menu of over 170 specialised transplant and infectious disease tests, longitudinal trends analysis of test results in the physician’s electronic medical record (EMR), and 24-hour support services that include medical consultation to ensure appropriate test selection and results interpretation affecting care.

The specialised services are offered to recipients and living donors throughout the United States (except Alaska and Hawaii), increasing access for transplant candidates and donors. While living donors and recipients frequently travel long distances for transplant surgery at a specialised center, access to specialised pre- and post-testing and results reporting may be lacking in their local community, potentially impeding living donation and long-term recipient success.

To overcome these constraints, the new services add new capabilities to Quest’s previous offering in transplant testing, including:

New patient-customized information packages to help educate patients on the procedure and assist Quest’s phlebotomists in fast-tracking testing for patients visiting one of Quest’s 2,100 patient service centres (results within 8-24 hours for some tests).

Quest Diagnostics

For both transplant recipients and living donors, ExamOne, a Quest Diagnostics subsidiary, offers at-home specimen collection by one of 5,000 mobile phlebotomists.

Apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) Renal Risk Variant Genotyping is a sophisticated genetic test used to assess the risk of kidney disease in donors.

Within the EMR, longitudinal tracking of viral loads test results by specimen type is possible.

“Having access to quick and convenient transplant testing services is critical for these vulnerable patient populations,” said Elizabeth A. Cohen, PharmD, BCPS, Clinical Pharmacist and Manager of Transplant Quality, Compliance, and Research at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Conn., which piloted the Quest offering. “By improving the transplant testing journey, we can meet patients where they are and demonstrate our commitment to their care.” Given the limitations to testing that we know certain patients face, working with Quest has increased access through its national scale and improved the level of care we can deliver, allowing us to better serve that goal.”

To identify infectious illnesses in donors and recipients, evaluate match compatibility, such as by human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing, monitor transplant therapy response, and identify rejection, organ and tissue transplantation necessitates a battery of testing. Because certain transplant medicines might impair the immune system, testing is essential for identifying infections and preventing transmission from a donor. Transplant recipients may be subjected to up to 500 tests over the course of their lives, while living donors may also be subjected to multiple tests before and after donating.

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