What do you call a test that’s more accretive than actionable? ‘Biomarkup’

Biomarkers, the molecular footprints of disease, can provide life-saving warnings to patients, which is why the tests that spot them are increasingly in demand. But those tests are neither perfect nor free, which creates a problematic situation for patients and doctors alike.

It’s a matter of incentives, experts from Boston Children’s Hospital explain in STAT. Not every patient needs a biomarker screening, and false positives can lead to unnecessary procedures. But selling tests benefits the manufacturers, and performing procedures benefits the doctors, and billing for all of the above benefits the hospitals.

Those economic pressures, which may not be apparent to doctors and patients, threaten to inflate a bubble for unnecessary tests, write Dr. Kenneth Mandl and Arjun Manrai. They even have a name for it: “biomarkup.”

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