A More Accurate Diagnosis

There hadn’t been a major diagnostic advance for preeclampsia – a potentially life-threatening high blood pressure condition that develops in 5 to 7% of all pregnancies and disproportionately affects Black women – in over a century. But in May, the FDA cleared two tests developed by Thermo Fisher Scientific that, based on the concentration of certain biomarkers in the patient’s blood, can quickly predict whether a pregnant person hospitalized with hypertension will develop severe preeclampsia within the next two weeks. “It’s changing the way that clinicians are able to get an objective reading and then make a decision” to prioritize treatment or discharge the patient, says Tina Liedtky, president of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s clinical diagnostics division.

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