Siemens Healthineers now offers a LOCI® Vitamin D Total assay on the Dimension® EXL™ Integrated Chemistry Systems. This assay enables laboratories to provide highly accurate total 25(OH) vitamin D results (~100% D2 and D3) with a fast turnaround time. Vitamin D testing can now be consolidated with routine testing on a fully automated, high-throughput integrated chemistry system.
- Provides excellent sensitivity for more-accurate differential diagnosis of vitamin D insufficiencies and improved patient care.
- Delivers fast turnaround time—31 minutes to first result.
- Offers good reagent and calibration stability for improved operational and labor efficiency with less hands-on time.
- Allows workload consolidation of routine and specialized tests for increased productivity.
Demand for vitamin D testing continues to grow, prompted by emerging research on the importance of vitamin D to wellness. Recent studies show that globally, over one billion people are vitamin D-deficient2, and deficiency rates have increased as people have limited their sun exposure due to the risk of skin cancer.
Vitamin D deficiency has long been associated with rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults, and long-term insufficiency of calcium and vitamin D leads to osteoporosis. However, in recent years, vitamin D has become an assay of general health status, and there have been multiple publications linking vitamin D deficiency to several disease states, such as cancer, cardiovascular, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases3.
Measurement of total vitamin D can aid in the correct interpretation of patients’ overall health status.