New capabilities include personalized patient access to Quest's national network of 2,100 patient service centers and 5,000 mobile and at-home phlebotomists, to support patient-compliant pre- and post-transplant testing and nationwide access, regardless of surgical center location
SECAUCUS, N.J., March 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the nation's leading provider of diagnostic information services, today unveiled a comprehensive suite of advanced diagnostics and support services designed to broaden access to laboratory tests for transplanting solid organ, human cells and tissue.
Quest Advanced® Specialized Transplant Services features a comprehensive menu of over 170 specialized transplant and infectious disease tests, longitudinal trends analysis of test results in the physician's electronic medical record (EMR), and round-the-clock support services that include medical consultation to ensure appropriate test selection and results interpretation affecting care.
The specialized services are available to recipients and living donors across the United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii), broadening access for candidates for transplant and their donors. While living donors and recipients commonly travel long distances for transplant surgery at a specialized center, access to specialized pre- and post-testing and results reporting may be absent in their local community, potentially impeding living donation and a successful long-term outcome for recipients.
To address these limitations, the new services expand on Quest's prior offering in transplant testing with new capabilities, including:
- New patient-customized information packets to help educate patients on the process and help Quest's phlebotomists fast-track testing--for results within 8-24 hours for some tests--for patients visiting one of Quest's 2,100 patient service centers.
- The option for at-home specimen collection from one of 5,000 mobile phlebotomists through ExamOne, a Quest Diagnostics company, for both transplant recipients and living donors.
- Apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) Renal Risk Variant Genotyping, an advanced genetic test to help evaluate kidney disease risk for donors.
- Longitudinal tracking of viral loads test results according to specimen type within the EMR.
"Access to fast and convenient transplant testing services is so vital for these vulnerable patient populations," said Elizabeth A. Cohen, PharmD, BCPS, Clinical Pharmacist and Manager of Transplant Quality, Compliance & Research at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Conn., which has piloted the Quest offering. "Creating a better transplant testing journey means that we can meet the patients where they are and show that we are invested in their care. Given the barriers to testing we know some patients experience, working with Quest has expanded access through its national scale and improved the level of care we have been able to provide, to help us serve that mission."
Organ and tissue transplantation requires a battery of tests to identify infectious diseases in donors and recipients, determine match compatibility, such as through human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing, monitor transplant therapy response and identify rejection. As certain transplant therapies may suppress the immune system, testing is also crucial to identify pathogens to help prevent transmission from a donor. Transplant recipients can undergo as many as 500 tests over the course of their lifetime, while living donors may also receive several tests before and after a donation.
Enabling the Growth of Living Donation
In 2021, over 6,500 transplants were performed in 2021 from living donors – an increase of 14.2 percent over 2020.1 Medical advances and less restrictive medical guidelines have opened opportunities for more individuals, including those diagnosed with hepatitis C or HIV, to act as living donors (for transplant recipients already infected).
Transplants from living donors versus cadavers are associated with more favorable outcomes, including lower risk of complications and shorter hospital stays post-surgery, and associated cost savings.
"Our transplant solutions draw from Quest's differentiated strengths in advanced diagnostics, specialized service and nationwide patient access to address a pressing clinical need for accessible, expert testing in the growing field of transplantation," said Karthik Kuppusamy, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Clinical Solutions, Quest Diagnostics. "In collaboration with Quest, transplant centers, hospital health systems and other providers can ensure living donors, recipients and care teams can access the advanced and personalized transplant diagnostics they need, even if the center performing the transplant surgery is many miles away. With greater access, more people can come together to potentially save lives."
A record-breaking 41,000+ transplants were performed nationwide in 2021, more than doubling the rate from 25 years ago.2
For more information, please visit Quest Advanced® Specialized Transplant Services.
About Quest Diagnostics
Quest Diagnostics empowers people to take action to improve health outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of clinical lab results, Quest's diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors, and improve health care management. Quest Diagnostics annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the physicians and hospitals in the United States, and our nearly 50,000 employees understand that, in the right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights can inspire actions that transform lives. www.QuestDiagnostics.com.
1 All-time records again set in 2021 for organ transplants, organ donation from deceased donors - OPTN (hrsa.gov)
2 U.S. reaches historic milestone of 1 million organ transplants - The Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance (organdonationalliance.org)
SOURCE Quest Diagnostics
