March 12, 2007
According to the American Heart Association, as many as 2 million Americans are affected with deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) every year but nearly 75% of Americans have little or no awareness of DVT.
March is DVT Awareness Month, and may alert people to the condition that could result in a pulmonary embolism (PE). More people die of PE in the United States each year than cancer and AIDS combined.
bioMérieux Inc, an in-vitro diagnostics company, manufacturers a rapid, automated enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) cleared by the FDA to exclude both PE and DVT disease in outpatients when used in conjunction with a pre-test probability assessment.
The test has a negative predictive value of greater that 99%, which means that patients who present to the emergency department with suspected PE or DVT won’t be subjected to invasive and costly imaging examinations for a negative diagnosis
More information can be found on the company’s Web site.
