Quest Diagnostics Inc unveiled extensions to its women’s health and AccuType® pharmacogenetic test menus during the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) annual meeting and Clinical Lab Expo.

The extensions to the company’s women’s health menu feature Athena Diagnostics’ spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) testing menu. The services, which include adult-carrier screening and pre- and post-natal disease assessment testing, are now nationally available to physicians, laboratory directors, and other clients of Quest Diagnostics. The offerings also position Quest Diagnostics as the only national major laboratory to provide testing services to assess SMA disease severity based on Athena’s analysis of the number of copies of an SMA-associated gene.

The SMA adult-carrier screening test detects defects in the survival motor neuron (SMN) 1 gene, which determines an individual’s risk of passing SMA to offspring. The pre- and post-natal disease assessment tests identify the number of copies of the SMN2 gene, which affects disease severity.

Source: Quest Diagnostics