Bard launches three-minute bladder cancer test
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Bard has launched a three-minute test for bladder cancer. Bard BTA, a latex agglutination and test strip assay, was introduced at the European Urological Winter Forum at Davos, Switzerland. Bard says the kit greatly improves on the noninvasive standard, voided urine cytology (VUC). An unpublished US study is reported to have found BTA to be nine times more sensitive than VUC in detecting Ta (superficial) grade I/II tumours and two and a half times as sensitive in Ta grade III and T1 (invasive) grade II/III tumours. In the case of flat tumours both methods performed equally well. Sensitivity of the new test is 96%.