NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Rosetta Genomics today announced that it has signed an agreement-in-principle with cytology laboratory FNApath to provide thyroid cancer testing services.
Under the deal, Rosetta will offer endocrinologists the option to send fine-needle aspirate (FNA) thyroid samples taken from patients suspected of having thyroid cancer to FNApath for analysis. In the event of an indeterminate result, the sample would then be tested with Rosetta's soon-to-be released Thyroid Reveal assay, which uses microRNA expression signatures for the differential diagnosis of indeterminate FNAs.
"Interpretation of FNA samples from thyroid nodules is not always straightforward, which leads to an indeterminate result in up to 30 percent of the samples," Rosetta President and CEO Kenneth Berlin said in a statement. "Many patients with indeterminate results are sent to surgery as a precaution, despite the fact the majority of these cases are benign."
The goal of the partnership is "to give endocrinologists the option of working with the pathologists they know and trust for the initial interpretation of the sample, or to use our designated experts," Douglas Sites, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Rosetta, added. "This open platform eliminates the penalty of having to secure another FNA from the patient in order to further examine the sample for a more accurate diagnosis and classification."
Rosetta aims to launch Thyroid Reveal at October's International Thyroid Congress and Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association.