The value of laboratory medicine in prevention

Screening is generally defined as an intervention aimed at identifying individuals with apparently good health, who may be at higher risk of developing health problems or diseases, so that early clinical management could be offered. Screening is also one of the most important aspects of laboratory medicine, but the use of laboratory tests for preventing diseases is often overlooked unless it is officially endorsed or supported by the governments. However, as briefly summarized in this opinion paper, some commonly used and relatively inexpensive tests have been shown to provide significant clinical and even economic benefits, increasing the value of laboratory testing beyond the detection of disease in frankly symptomatic people. Early identification of individuals at increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease by low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, heart failure by natriuretic peptides, diabetes by HbA1c, Alzheimer’s disease by cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, along with early multicancer detection through cell-free DNA, represents only a small part of the value of laboratory medicine in prevention, but reveals its enormous potential for the future. We should all start thinking outside the box, because if we spend a little more on laboratory testing now, we could obtain significant savings in the healthcare system afterwards.