By Kirell Lakhman

LabCorp today said “continued growth” of its esoteric testing business helped drive a 4.2-percent increase in third-quarter revenue as the company paired costs to help profits widen 18 percent year over year.

Total receipts for the three months ended Sept. 30 rose to $1.2 billion from $1.1 billion.

According to a report on Nasdaq, LabCorp “has continued to see operating results improve on strong growth in its genomic and esoteric business. Rival Quest Diagnostics posted better-than-expected third-quarter results Tuesday on strong overall demand for diagnostic testing and a much-smaller drop in drug-testing sequentially.”

According to analysts at Lazard Capital Markets, revenue growth for the quarter “is pricing driven” and was “above our estimate.” Also, total accessions increased 0.7 percent during the period compared with Lazard’s 1.5 percent estimate.

“Note that LabCorp had a 0.7-percent tailwind on year-over-year volume from hurricanes in 2008,” Lazard said, adding that “price per accession increased 3.7 percent, better than our estimate of 1.4 percent.”

The analysts also said they “assume that drug testing continued to be a drag in Q3” — which Quest yesterday conceded it was for its top line.

According to Nasdaq, LabCorp “has relied on acquisitions for growth in recent years,” mentioning its $106.7 million acquisition of Monogram Biosciences in August.

You may also recall that around this time last month I wrote that LabCorp could be sniffing around for another acquisition.

On the spending front, S,G&A rose 8.8 percent to $247 million in the third quarter, which helped profit increase 18 percent to $131,4 million.

LabCorp had around $126.8 million in cash and short-term investments as of Sept. 30.