Diagnostics:
Diagnostics of a disease is a critical and integral part of our health care system. Diagnostics is testing, and these tests inform us about a wide range of medical decisions to be taken according to the disease. Diagnostics tests provide critical insights at every stage of medical care prevention, detection, diagnostics therapy, and successful management of health conditions.
Diagnostics can help to answer the following questions:
Question: is the baby healthy?
Prenatal diagnostics/testing
Question what drug should be prescribed?
Drug selection
Question: what is the risk of disease?
Disease diagnostics and disease pretesting
Question: chances of disease of coming back?
Disease recurrence
A molecular diagnostic is one of the most important, dynamic, and transforming areas of diagnostic. it leads to advancement in research and treatment. Molecular diagnostics term refers to laboratory tests which are used to identify the disease and causing agent by analyzing DNA, RNA, and proteins.
In molecular diagnostics, we use the techniques to find out information about the disease and learn how to prevent that disease. We analyze the genomic and proteomics in molecular diagnostics by using molecular biology headed for medical examination.
The most common molecular diagnostic by with every researcher/student is familiar with is PCR: PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction used to make copies of the DNA sample.
Some other techniques used in molecular diagnostics are:
RFLP(restriction fragment length polymorphism), ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), FISH(fluorescent in situ hybridization), epitope mapping,
Importance/advantages of molecular diagnostics
- Early detection of a disease so we can do better care of the patient.
- Choose appropriate treatment and ignore the unnecessary treatment.
- Choosing appropriate treatment will also reduce the cost of treatment.
- Reduce morbidity and spread.
Molecular diagnostic is an interdisciplinary field applied in the following fields:
- Genetic testing
- Prenatal testing
- Oncology (studying cancer)
- Infectious disease medicine
- Transplant medicine