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Room for Improvement?

Wayne W. Grody, MD, PhD; Reed E. Pyeritz, MD, PhD

JAMA. 1999;281:845-847.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Few areas of medicine are evolving as rapidly as molecular testing, and virtually no area holds so much promise for altering the practice of medicine. Of course, testing based on molecules has been conducted from at least the time when physicians tasted urine to detect glycosuria. Today multiparameter automated chemical analyzers have greatly extended the ability to test for hundreds of compounds in any sample of the human body. But the term molecular genetic testing now refers specifically to nucleic acid analysis, usually involving DNA. The techniques have become so sophisticated and numerous that increasingly the average physician can have no more understanding of molecular genetic testing than of the inner workings of the instrument that performs a chem-18. However, several points warrant emphasis: the scope and impact of molecular testing continue to expand, organized medicine must ensure the highest . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Author Affiliations: Divisions of Molecular Pathology and Medical Genetics, Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Pediatrics, University of California, Los Angeles (Dr Grody); and Center for Medical Genetics, Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pa (Dr Pyeritz).

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