• Home pregnancy tests are a common type of in vitro diagnostics"Pregnancy Test" is Copyrighted by Flickr user: Editor B (Bart Everson) under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
  
  

Types

• Most people are familiar with home pregnancy tests and diabetic glucose meters, which are both types of in vitro diagnostics. More home testing devices are becoming available to screen for a variety of conditions, from osteoporosis to cancer. Doctors use in vitro diagnostics on a daily basis to screen for medical problems and warning signs. If your doctor is concerned about a possible disease or condition, he will usually run a variety of blood work to check levels of red and white blood cells, platelets, hemoglobin, glucose, electrolytes and enzymes. All of these tests will use in vitro diagnostic tools.
  
  

Function

• In vitro diagnostics serve a wide variety of purposes in the medical profession. Testing blood or tissues is usually not invasive, and is often the first step in diagnosing a problem. Home diagnostics like pregnancy tests or blood glucose meters help patients assess their condition before they go to the doctor. Diagnostics are also commonly used after a condition is diagnosed, to monitor a patient's development. For example, doctors routinely monitor levels of red and white blood cells in chemotherapy patients to gauge a patient's reaction to the treatment.
  
  

Benefits

• Simple in vitro diagnostics can help doctors quickly rule out certain conditions and indicate other problems. These tests make diagnosis possible without invasive surgeries or other procedures to visually diagnose patients. Additionally, by performing tests on samples rather than people, the risk to the patient is extremely low and the doctor can perform many tests on the same sample. This reduces the cost of treatment and makes diagnosis faster, easier and less painful.
  
  

Expert Insight

• The British In Vitro Diagnostics Association (BIVDA) stresses the importance of in vitro diagnostics for early diagnosis and treatment of serious disease. However, according to BIVDA, use of comprehensive diagnostic testing has been reduced due to budget cuts in many medical facilities. This means that tests that could help doctors catch disease in early stages are not being performed. More medical professionals are becoming aware of this problem, and stressing the importance of in vitro diagnostics for both patient health and overall cost reduction, because the cost of early testing is far lower than the cost of extensive treatment later on.
  
  

Potential

• New in vitro diagnostic tools are always being developed, and the industry continues to grow. A simple test to diagnose endometriosis (a painful womb condition) was released in August 2009. The test was found to be nearly 100 percent accurate in diagnosing endometriosis, a condition that previously required women to wait up to eleven years and undergo surgery before receiving a final diagnosis. Tools to identify similarly difficult conditions are released every year.