Health tests need to be evaluated
Sebastian Czapnik/Dreamstime.com
Diagnostic testing: concerns raised over use of NHS monies to reassure
the worried well |
Diagnostic health tests should be evaluated and regulated in a similar way to medicines, according to a report
published this week.
The Royal College of Pathologists and the PHG Foundation (a public health
and genetics charity) are calling for information about the performance
and usefulness of tests — ranging from cholesterol testing kits
to genetic tests — to be stored in a publicly accessible database,
equivalent to the British National Formulary.
Healthcare professionals
should then be encouraged to use only the tests with sufficient evidence
of clinical performance.
Commenting on the report’s launch, Evan Harris MP said: “At
a time when the NHS cannot afford even all those carefully evaluated
tests and treatments that are known to save or improve lives, it cannot
be right for there to be a free-for-all on tests which are of dubious
value and require the NHS to spend scarce resources investigating or
reassuring the worried well.”
The report says that, despite NHS laboratories having sophisticated systems
to ensure the analytical accuracy of tests, no system is in place to
ensure the clinical effectiveness of individual tests. It says that this
system is analogous to “having a pharmaceutical industry with tight
control of the chemical purity
of drugs, but with no formal requirement for evidence that a drug benefits
patients”.
As well as helping healthcare professionals to order tests that are proven
to be useful and cost-effective, a new regulatory system will help protect
the public who purchase these tests over the counter or via the internet.
There are concerns that these tests are sold with heavy marketing, but
that patients are not aware of the risks. To help address this, a new
patient guide, “Making
sense of testing”, has been published
by the charity Sense About Science.
The guide highlights that the market for home tests used by the “worried
well” is now worth £99m a year.
The guide also explains that tests are only one part of diagnosis, and
in some cases can cause harm. It says that many of the tests available
are not researched or adequately regulated, and describes concepts such
as false negative and false positive results. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader