Direct to Consumer Laboratory Testing (DTCT) – Opportunities and Concerns

Direct to consumer laboratory testing has the potential for self-empowerment of patients. However, the Direct to consumer laboratory testing (DTCT) uses loopholes which are related to the particular situation of healthcare: While advertisements and claims for medical usefulness are very high regulated in healthcare, essentially no regulations safeguard the consumers in DTCT. The same is true for the quality of testing services since quality regulations are only mandatory in healthcare. Another problem is the lack of medical interpretation of test results. Besides being very risky for the consumers, healthcare professionals relying on test results obtained by DTCT must be aware about the risks of these data.