This article has been updated with a comment from an Affymetrix spokesman.
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Affymetrix today said that researchers at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have used the firm’s microarray technology to develop a molecular diagnostic test for patients with inheritable forms of jaundice.
According to the firm, the Cincinnati hospital has developed a test that is CLIA- and CAP-approved and is available worldwide. The Jaundice Chip is intended to more precisely identify patients at high risk for progressive liver disease. The chip detects the five most common genetic mutations in children with inherited causes of jaundice, which represent around half of all pediatric chronic liver disease cases, said Affy.
An Affymetrix spokesman told GenomeWeb Daily News that the test runs on Affymetrix's GCS 3000 platform but is not sold through the firm's clinical lab. He said that Cincinnati Children's Hospital is the only lab offering the jaundice test at this time.
Affy noted that jaundice occurs in one out of every 2,200 live births in the US, and in patients with pathological jaundice the disease may progress to end-stage liver disease or cirrhosis.