Q&A SIEMENS 021
integrated IT systems, the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery with Siemens solutions helps to address these healthcare challenges. Our new and innovative ELF marker (Enhanced Liver Fibrosis) is a good example that is not only a diagnostic test, but also has become a lifestyle marker. The public are currently more aware and request for health checks on their liver, as this can now be easily done without a need for liver biopsy.
Q. Can you briefly tell us what the ELF test is, and give us an update now six months after its launch? A. The Enhanced Liver Fibrosis (ELF)™ test is the first fully automated standardized direct biomarker panel offering clinicians a quick, reliable, minimally invasive blood test option to assess liver fibrosis – a leading indicator of chronic liver disease – with results in less than one hour. Liver fibrosis is an important indicator of chronic liver disease
(CLD), such as cirrhosis and liver cancer, which are now among the top ten causes of death worldwide. The ELF test is a simple, standardized blood test that assesses the severity of liver fibrosis by combining three direct serum biomarkers – hyaluronic acid (HA), procollagen III amino terminal peptide (PIIINP), and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1 (TIMP-1) – in an algorithm. The result is an ELF score, which correlates to the level of liver fibrosis assessed by liver biopsy, the current standard of care for liver fibrosis diagnosis. Besides being a non-invasive method for liver fibrosis assessment, there are also a number of potential clinical applications for the ELF score. Symptoms of chronic liver disease can be detected even before a biopsy is performed. It can be used to predict the likelihood of a liver- related disease, aid in the monitoring of the progression of liver fibrosis over time, and monitor the efficacy of therapy administered.
Q. Despite the sunny climate, Vitamin D deficiency is a big problem in this region. How important is it to diagnose and treat this deficiency and why? A. Vitamin D deficiency has long been associated with rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults, and long-term insufficiency of calcium and vitamin D leads to osteoporosis. More recently, studies are linking vitamin D deficiency to several other disease states such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases. At the same time, deficiency rates are increasing with over a billion people being vitamin D deficient worldwide as people limit their sun exposure due to the risk of skin cancer. As deficiency rates continue to rise – and support continues to build for vitamin D sufficiency as a general health indicator – so too has the demand for vitamin D testing.
Q. Obesity is a risk factor to patients developing DVT and Pulmonary Embolism – what are Siemens doing to help physicians to diagnose or exclude a blood clot from a diagnosis? A. Pulmonary embolism (PE) results when a blood clot from another part of the body, such as the arms or legs, breaks loose and travels through the blood stream to the lungs, where it can block the pulmonary artery. When left untreated, PE can be fatal. Unfortunately, diagnosing PE can be challenging, as symptoms are non-specific and vary from person to person. Siemens has launched the new Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics D-dimer test for the company’s Stratus® CS Acute Care™ Diagnostic System which excludes PE in conjunction with a non-high clinical pretest probability (PTP) assessment model in point of care. Currently, this is the only assay available to achieve this clinical validity for use in the point-of-care setting. The expanded use of the Stratus CS system D-dimer test to quickly exclude PE helps physicians at the point of care provide a more timely assessment in
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acute situations. Combining a sensitivity of 97% and an even higher negative predictive value (NPV) of 98% with the proven precision and speed of the Stratus CS system allows clinicians to have greater confidence, translating to better patient management. Further, results are available in as little as 14 minutes, and testing can be run on the same tube as other Stratus assays, eliminating the need to collect additional tubes or split samples.
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