STAT+: Social media diss highlights high-stakes rivalry over colon cancer blood tests
Biotech companies routinely compete to develop and commercialize products. But these rivalries are seldom as…
Category: diagnostics
Opinion: Who should get to see the neurologist first: the sick or the at-risk?
Once a year, Jessi Keavney goes to see her neurologist. During the visit, the doctor asks if…
Settlement blocks diagnostics maker EpicGenetics from selling two questionable blood tests
A diagnostics company has agreed to stop selling two questionable blood tests as part of…
STAT+: How UnitedHealth turned a questionable artery-screening program into a gold mine
The nation’s largest health care company pressed thousands of its clinicians to use a thinly…
Opinion: Address liquid biopsy disparities today to ensure equity in outcomes tomorrow
The promise of scientific and medical innovation often comes with a downside: improvements in care…
STAT+: In a big step for liquid biopsy, FDA approves a blood test for colorectal cancer
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a blood test intended to detect colon…
STAT+: Startup Q Bio raises $27 million to build its own full-body scanner
A prevention-focused co-founded by the head of a Stanford research lab is making an expensive…
Q&A: Why more info can lead some women to prefer delaying first mammogram
The messaging around mammography often doesn’t go beyond this simple three-word refrain: screening saves lives….
STAT+: Are expensive whole-body MRI scans medically useful? A new clinical trial aims to find out
A startup selling elective whole-body scans for upward of $1,000 is launching a 10-year, 100,000…
STAT+: Journal retracts study tied to Micronoma’s effort to create blood cancer test
Nature retracted a high-profile paper that served as part of the scientific groundwork for Micronoma,…
Senators push Medicare for a PET scan pay bump
You’re reading the web edition of D.C. Diagnosis, STAT’s twice-weekly newsletter about the politics and…
STAT+: AliveCor gets FDA nod for portable 12-lead, AI-powered ECG device
AliveCor has spent years battling with Apple over the market for consumer heart monitoring technology….
STAT+: Grail, aiming to launch a blood test for cancer, faces host of challenges as it debuts on Nasdaq
On Tuesday, shares of Grail, the liquid biopsy company that hopes that its test, Galleri,…
STAT+: Oncologists turn to blood test for circulating tumor DNA, but questions remain on how to use the data
The hope for many cancer patients who go through surgery is that they’ll be cured…
STAT+: Oncologists turn to blood test for circulating tumor DNA, but questions remain on how to use the data
The hope for many cancer patients who go through surgery is that they’ll be cured…
STAT+: New AI for biopsies can analyze microscopic images, talk to pathologists about your tumor
To non-pathologists, the histology slide looked, as all histology slides do, a sea of mottled…
Three scientists win Kavli Prize for nanoscience in biomedicine
Three scientists — Robert Langer, Paul Alivisatos, and Chad Mirkin — were awarded the 2024…
Opinion: Blood tests for cancer detection aren’t yet ready for prime time
Multi-cancer early detection tests (MCEDs), sometimes called liquid biopsy tests, are a new method of…
STAT+: Illumina board agrees to spin off Grail, as divestment plans proceed
Illumina said Monday afternoon that its board of directors had approved a spin-off of its…
STAT+: Delfi Diagnostics announces key data, study design for its liquid biopsy test
CHICAGO — Delfi Diagnostics, a company seeking to develop liquid biopsy tests to help screen…
STAT+: FDA advisers endorse Guardant Health’s colon cancer screening test
An independent panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended the agency approve…
STAT+: Cue Health, Covid-19 testing company, is shutting down
In an abrupt change of course from plans earlier in the month, at-home test maker…
STAT+: Cue Health’s Covid-19 tests could give false results, FDA warns
The Food and Drug Administration warned consumers Monday to not use Cue Health’s at-home Covid-19…
Exact Sciences’ stock tumbles amid worries cancer detection firm’s growth may slow
Exact Sciences reported first-quarter revenues this week that beat market expectations, and the cancer detection…
STAT+: New liquid biopsy screening test for pancreatic cancer shows promise in early data
For the vast majority of pancreatic cancer cases, the tumor grows undetected until it has…
STAT+: WHO scientists question Grail’s plan for evaluating its multi-cancer Galleri blood test
A new analysis published Sunday challenges the clinical trial endpoint the cancer screening firm Grail…
Feds bar Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes from government health programs
WASHINGTON — Theranos founder and ex-CEO Elizabeth Holmes is banned from federal health programs for…
STAT+: The FDA’s diagnostics chief, who led through Covid, has retired
Timothy Stenzel, the federal regulator who led the Food and Drug Administration’s diagnostics division during…
STAT+: Illumina says it will divest Grail, starting a closing chapter for a disastrous deal
Illumina, the leading maker of DNA sequencing machines, said Sunday that it would divest Grail,…
Opinion: Listen: When do tests hurt more than help?
Manil Suri and Daniel Morgan are an unusual team: Manil is a mathematics professor and…
Opinion: STAT readers on diagnostic tests, marijuana regulation, and pediatric oncology
STAT now publishes selected Letters to the Editor received in response to First Opinion essays…
Opinion: Diagnostic tests for rare conditions present a mathematical conundrum
Worried about your health? You can now avail yourself of noninvasive diagnostics that claim to…
Pulse oximeters’ inaccuracies in darker-skinned people require urgent action, AGs tell FDA
More than two dozen attorneys general are urging Food and Drug Administration officials to take…
American Cancer Society expands lung cancer screening guidelines for cigarette smokers
Most lung cancer screening guidelines hinge on how much people smoked tobacco and when they…
Opinion: Liquid biopsy for cancer recurrence creates a new kind of patient-in-waiting
My husband’s cancer came back this summer after not being evident for almost two years….
Opinion: A better way for doctors and health plans to manage genetic tests
New technology has a history of overwhelming existing systems that try to manage it, and…
STAT+: Delfi launches its blood test to screen for lung cancer – and reveals challenges for liquid biopsies
Delfi Diagnostics, a well-funded startup in the burgeoning field of creating blood tests to detect…
2023 Nobel Prize winner: Physics award goes to trio for electron breakthroughs
LONDON — Three scientists whose work on electrons widened the world’s understanding of the particles’…
STAT+: FDA seeks to regulate lab-developed tests, closing the ‘Theranos loophole’
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced its intention to start regulating tests developed…
STAT+: After a high-profile pressure campaign, Cepheid agrees to sell a TB test at cost
Following a high-profile pressure campaign, the company that makes a crucial tuberculosis test has agreed…
Opinion: What a viral study criticizing cancer screening gets very, very wrong
A recent study prompted CNN to report, “Most cancer screenings don’t ultimately give someone extra…
STAT+: A yogurt drink instead of a colonoscopy? Study uses engineered bacteria to detect cancer
Dan Worthley, a gastroenterologist and cancer scientist at Colonoscopy Clinic in Brisbane, Australia, does thousands…
National panel will explore requiring free Covid tests
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force will discuss recommending Covid-19 screening, the first…
Opinion: Why new guidelines recommending screening at 40 can’t end the mammography wars
New breast cancer screening guidelines from the United States Preventive Services Task Force give the…
STAT+: Truvian presents data for its desktop blood-testing device in a field still in Theranos’s shadow
SAN DIEGO — Truvian Health, a San Diego blood diagnostics company, shared data on Tuesday…
As Alzheimer’s drugs hit the market, the race for early detection blood tests heats up
With the advent of disease-modifying Alzheimer’s drugs, everyone in the world of Alzheimer’s diagnostics is…
Opinion: We finally have new Alzheimer’s drugs. How do we decide who gets them?
The recent FDA approval of Leqembi, the latest anti-amyloid drug, is undoubtedly a breakthrough for…
STAT+: Grail faces uphill battle to get Medicare to cover its cancer screening test
WASHINGTON — Grail is aggressively lobbying to get Medicare to pay for its cancer-screening test…
New DNA test aims to make cervical cancer screening more accessible in low-income countries
A genomic test for the human papillomavirus has shown promise in early-stage trials, raising hopes…
Opinion: What happens when patients beat their doctors to their test results
Not so long ago, a father broke down in tears with me over Zoom —…