Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, has set up the country's first Protein Biochip Array Analyser, called Evidence, on Thursday. The new analyser incorporates the latest technology available for multi-analyte testing and generates comprehensive patient profiles in routine clinical diagnostics.

The fully automated sample processing with minimal operator input reduces the risk of human error to a minimum. The analyser, the first of its kind in Asia, will be used for a number of applications, including diagnosis of cardiac and cancer patients.

Launching the new device, Sangeeta Reddy, Managing Director of the Apollo Group, said new technology would now enable the hospital to offer cost-effective diagnostic services with added value to the patients.

“The superior diagnostic accuracy with this technology leads to better patient care and signals a new era of diagnostics. We also expect this to enable us take more steps towards phase-III multi-centric clinical trials. We are currently carrying out 19 clinical trials in various areas including cardiology and oncology,” she said.

Sangeeta Reddy said the system developed by UK-based Randox Laboratories Ltd offered many additional advantages within the busy routine testing laboratory with 20 tests on a chip throughputs of 3,600 tests per hour. Apart from having special chips for diagnosis of coronary heart diseases and various forms of cancer, Evidence was also claimed to generate accurate and timely diagnosis for diseases such as thyroid and fertility abnormalities, detection of allergies, inflammation and drugs abuse.

Stating that the new diagnostic services would be bundled and offered to the patients as a part of the Master Health Check-up Plan at more affordable tariffs shortly, Sangeeta Reddy said the modalities were currently being worked out in this direction. Apollo was also planning to make the Hyderabad facility as the hub of laboratory services for all the group hospitals across the country, she said.

Addressing newsmen, Dr Lorna Lawrence, Business Development Manager, Randox Labs, said Evidence allowed a multitude of tests to be carried out on a single patient sample simultaneously, enabling more information and accurate diagnosis. Stating that barcoding allowed full traceability of samples and eliminated pre-analytical error and the results stored in electronic format enabled easy retrieval, she said Evidence had become the world's highest throughput immunoassay system

Since the Evidence technology uses minimal sample volumes, from 7 to 100 millilitres per chip, it was also considered highly useful for pediatric testing, where babies cannot provide large samples of blood for testing.

Sreeram Gopal, Randox India Manager, said this was a very exciting addition to Apollo's capabilities in patient diagnosis and offers not only potential for more accurate diagnosis, but by incorporating certain tests will enable clinicians to decide on the most appropriate therapy on an individual patient basis. This was in line with Apollo's strategy to make India the healthcare destination of the world, he said.