Medical Director Intermountain Medical Center Park City, Utah, United States
Description: The advent of culture-independent, highly multiplexed, syndromic molecular panels has changed the diagnostic landscape and has become widely adopted in clinical medicine. Such methods have simplified lab workflow, shortened the turnaround time for pathogen identification and in most instances, improved the analytical sensitivity. Most syndromic panels were designed to be comprehensive to detect and report any potential pathogen with an “all or none” approach, including pathogens rarely encountered in many clinical settings. Despite these innovations, the clinical approach to patient care remains unchanged and require other clinical information to aid in the interpretation of test results, especially when a test yields an unexpected result. Other challenges of panel testing include lack of data to guide when such panels should be used and if use of panels lead to improved clinical outcomes. This is especially problematic as panel use increases the cost of care with an uncertain re-imbursement landscape that frequently lead to non-reimbursement of larger panels with more than 11 targets.
Learning Objectives: 1. To review the clinical benefits of syndromic panel testing while also examining the challenges and limitations.
