Developing Diagnostic Tests for Common Diseases: Role of the Rare Diseases

The objective of minimal residual disease surveillance is to determine whether there are any traces of disease, not observable by standard clinical examination, that persist following treatment. The objective of recurrence surveillance is to determine whether a disease has recurred after remission.When we review these various new diagnostic activities, we see that they recapitulate the steps of disease pathogenesis: the conditions that place an individual at risk of developing disease, the earliest steps in pathogenesis, the development of precursor lesions, response pathways, and disease progression. New laboratory tests are designed to measure markers for the genes and pathways that account for the components of pathogenesis. Chapter 13 explains that the genes and pathways that lead to rare diseases are the pathogenetic building blocks of common diseases. Hence, the diagnostic techniques applied to a common disease will likely draw on knowledge obtained from one or more rare diseases.I urge you to read more about this book. There's a good preview of the book at the Google Books site. If you like the book, please request your librarian to purchase a copy of this book for your library or reading room. - Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D.tags: complex diagnoses, clinical pathology, biomarkers, new biomarkers, molecular tests, rare diseases, orphan drugs, orphan diseases

Source: Specified Life - June 23, 2014 Category: Pathologists Tags: biomarkers clinical pathology complex diagnoses genetic disease molecular tests new biomarkers orphan diseases orphan drugs rare diseases Source Type: blogs