| Abstract: |
Laboratory Initiative For The Year 2000 (LIFT), the laboratory response to the Healthy People 2000 program, includes the following in its definition of chronic disease: cancer, diabetes, hypertension, end-stage renal disease, stroke, and cardiovascular disease. All are priority health targets for which the laboratory must play an active support role if we are to achieve the goal of controlling these diseases by the year 2000. What are the laboratory procedures needed to assist in the prevention and detection of chronic disease? In this review I consider the traditional tests now used in these efforts, emphasize how and where screening for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer is now done, and describe the current status of the clinical laboratory in supporting these activities, including new and promising procedures that may be useful in identifying individuals at high risk for disease. It is important to initiate good clinical laboratory practice for these new tests as they are transferred from the research laboratory to the clinical laboratory. The laboratory will be required to provide for this need rapidly and at the same time comply with federal and state controls and regulations. |
