Diagnostic Tests

Doctors who are aware of the costs of routine medical tests order fewer of them, researchers said last week. A study of physicians at a large Indiana medical clinic found that when the costs of various diagnostic tests were shown on a computer system they used, the number of tests they asked for declined by 15%.

A former Temple City sheriff's station deputy who pleaded guilty Dec. 9 to theft and credit card fraud will be sent to state prison in Chino for diagnostic tests to determine his suitability for probation, a judge ruled Friday. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lance ordered the tests before sentencing Brent Mosley on June 1. The tests will help the judge decide whether the former deputy should be placed on probation or sent to prison for up to six years.

Audio professionals, such as recording engineers and sound mixers for the music and film industries, depend on their ability to discriminate among very high-frequency sounds that others may not pick up. Although such sounds are among the first to be lost through exposure to damaging noise, until now there has been no way to test acuity in those ranges. But last week, the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles began offering specialized hearing tests that evaluate extended high-frequency thresholds.

When psychologist Doreen Kimura reported three years ago that women's performances on standardized tests vary with their hormonal cycles, she was roundly criticized for her "sexist" attitude. Critics charged that her results reinforced the idea that women could not handle certain jobs because they were prey to their emotions once a month.

A new virus that appears to have similarities to the AIDS virus has been isolated from a patient with Sjogren's syndrome, an uncommon ailment that causes dryness of the mouth and eyes, according to researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans.

The Department of Health and Human Services has drafted a regulation to force hospital and independent laboratories--but not labs in doctors' offices--to improve the accuracy and quality of clinical tests or be tossed out of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, documents indicate. The proposed regulation would apply to common diagnostic tests such as Pap smears, blood tests and urinalysis checks for illegal drug use. Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and aides to House Commerce Committee Chairman John D.

Striving for further geographic expansion of its medical laboratory network, Nichols Institute said Wednesday that it has formed a joint venture with three major hospital systems in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. The San Juan Capistrano-based medical laboratory firm will act as the general partner in an alliance with Baylor Health System and Presbyterian Healthcare System, both based in Dallas, and Harris Methodist Health System, based in Ft. Worth.

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche Holding will buy holding company Corange for $11 billion in a deal that will make it a world leader in the medical diagnostics business. Roche announced Monday it will take over Corange's holdings in Germany's Boehringer Mannheim, a market leader in cardiovascular and cancer treatments. It will also gain an 84.2% stake in DePuy, a Warsaw, Ind.-based producer of orthopedic products that had an initial public offering in October.

Consolidation in the $30-billion medical-testing business accelerated Wednesday as La Jolla-based National Health Laboratories and Swiss-owned Roche Biomedical Laboratories said they would merge into the nation's largest diagnostic laboratory chain. Company officials and analysts said the merger idea was a response to intense price pressure coming from cost-conscious managed-care firms and the federal government. The combination of the third-largest and fourth-largest U.S.

Nearly 50,000 people who have applied for life insurance from Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance Co. since late 1990 are being tracked without their knowledge, the company has disclosed, in what appears to be a large field study of an experimental cancer test. The test, developed by a prominent Santa Monica researcher, is said to detect cancer in its earliest stages, long before the disease is evident through X-rays or physical exams.