SilverStaff Clinical Laboratories will begin offering BG Medicine’s Galectin-3 blood test to its laboratory customers and physicians. When used with clinical evaluation, the test can help doctors identify extremely high-risk patients among those already suffering from chronic heart failure. Scarce resources can then be apportioned to patients most likely to face an imminent threat like hospitalization or death.
The BGM Galectin-3 test has been evaluated in over 10,000 patients and dozens of clinical trials. Last year it was included in the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology Foundation’s 2013 Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure as a biomarker of myocardial fibrosis for use as an additive risk stratification test in heart failure patients.
