Xenomics launches AML stratification test

Xenomics, a US developer of next-generation medical DNA diagnostics, says its first test developed for stratification of patients with acute myeloid leukemia has been implemented at a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments-approved facility, BRT Laboratories in Baltimore, Maryland, and is now available for clinicians.

AML is the most common form of acute leukemia with about 13,400 new cases expected in 2007 in the USA and a similar number in Europe. Early detection of AML subtypes is important for the development of a treatment strategy. Xenomics' new test is based on a recent discovery at the Institute of Hematology at the University of Perugia in Italy that mutations in a nucleophosmin gene are characteristic of 30%-40% of the cases of AML. Xenomics has obtained an exclusive license for the invention and developed a test that detects all 45 known mutations of NPM1 in a single reaction.