Media Coverage

Despite the national hepatitis C elimination goals for 2030 to achieve at least 80% of persons with hepatitis C to achieve viral clearance, the goals across states is consistently falling under. In fact, analysis of data collected during 2013–2022 from a national laboratory found that HCV clearance or cure proportions among persons with virus by state was between 10% to 51%.1This data was published in the Centers for Disease Control’ and Prevention's (CDC) MMWR late last week. The investigators collected 10 years of data from January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2022 utilizing information from the national laboratory company, Quest Diagnostics. They analyzed patients from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

A blood test could help reduce costs for health plans by reliably identifying patients who might be able to safely forgo chemotherapy after surgery for stage II colorectal cancer, according to a study published in JAMA Health Forum, a member of the JAMA Network. Researchers from Haystack Oncology, a Quest Diagnostics company and developer of the Haystack MRD tumor-informed ctDNA MRD technology, City of Hope and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research conducted the study. In June 2022, a randomized clinical trial (DYNAMIC) demonstrated that a tumor-informed ctDNA MRD test performed on patients with stage II colorectal cancer reduced the application of adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) by nearly half (15% vs. 28%) without compromising recurrence-free survival.

Workers are cheating on drug tests at the highest rate in more than 30 years, according to one of the U.S.’s largest drug-testing labs. The increase in tampered tests came from samples collected in 2023. About 31,000 drug screens out of 5.5 million showed signs of cheating, according to Quest Diagnostics. “Some American workers are going to great lengths to attempt to subvert the drug-testing process,” said Dr. Suhash Harwani, senior director of science for workforce health solutions at Quest. The percentage of urine samples that came back positive for drugs among the U.S. workforce remained steady at a two-decade high for the third year in a row. But the substantial rise of tampering, as well as the patchwork of new marijuana laws across the U.S., have intensified challenges for employers seeking to keep drugs out of the workplace.

Quest Diagnostics is building out its artificial intelligence-powered cancer pathology offerings through a multi-layered deal with PathAI—acquiring some assets, licensing out others. The testing giant will be buying out PathAI’s Memphis, Tennessee-based diagnostics laboratory, with plans to turn it into its own AI and digital R&D solutions center to help support its current AmeriPath and Dermpath Diagnostics pathology businesses.

Quest Diagnostics suggested Tuesday that laboratory industry staffing shortages could redound to its benefit as hospital labs are forced to either scale back or sell off their lab operations. On a conference call following the release of the company's Q1 2024 earnings results, Quest Chairman, President, and CEO Jim Davis observed that the company has seen particular strength in hospital reference testing as that portion of its business continued to grow at a faster rate than it had prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that this trend was driven in part by the lab business's much discussed workforce crunch, noting that hospitals "face persistent challenges with staffing certain roles in specialized fields like histology, microbiology, and cytotechnology."