CCHE’s pathology department molecular lab acquires the digital PCR device; Hospital 57357 being the first pediatric oncology hospital in Egypt to use this technology.
“We are looking forward to exploiting new technologies to maximize patient’s safety while achieving highest levels of patient’s satisfaction and drug use efficacy”, said Dr. Sara Sobhy, a molecular lab pathologist at CCHE57357 molecular lab, revealing the new acquisition’s significance to patients of the hospital. The high degree of sensitivity is what makes this new technology stand out. One of the applications of the device is the ability to precisely track an individual cancer patient’s response to therapy and the possibility of a disease recurrence within a few days which was unable to be done with the previous technologies. Moreover, it offers an ultimate solution for the insufficient low or degraded DNA biopsies especially for patients with solid tumors which requires a surgical review, overburdening patients, and wasting hospital limited resources. In similar cases, the machine can carry out the needed tests to a blood sample(liquid biopsy), which is the least invasive procedure to the patient and at a lower cost if compared to a biopsy retake. Furthermore, it can easily detect the presence of cell mutations in a given biopsy if compared to real-time PCR devices that are used also for quantification but with a higher degree of sensitivity. Experts from the manufacturing company will offer the molecular lab team an adequate training session for optimal use of the device within the oncology field.
It is noteworthy that the core function of the molecular pathology lab is to perform crucial tests for better disease definition and therefore more accurate diagnosis, better identification of molecular predictive and prognostic genes for a more specific therapeutic approach.