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AMP reports findings on pandemic’s impact, molecular test interpretation

April 2021—In an Association for Molecular Pathology survey focused on molecular testing in oncology during the pandemic, 70 percent of 163 respondents reported having decreased or stopped the development and validation of new tests in their laboratories.

Forty-eight percent said the turnaround time for test results increased, and 42 percent stopped or canceled plans to upgrade or buy new equipment.

Those are some of the findings of the responses to a question about the effects of the pandemic on the laboratory’s operations and its ability to perform molecular testing in oncology.

The survey was conducted between Sept. 29 and Oct. 14, 2020. Its purpose was to document how the pandemic has affected national and international labs that provide such testing. The top five countries contributing to the survey were the U.S. (59 percent), Canada (12 percent), India (six percent), Italy (three percent), and Spain (three percent).

Other immediate effects on operations, as reported by respondents who were able to select all that applied, were an inability to fill open staff positions with qualified candidates (31 percent), having taken on fewer trainees or interns (27 percent), having started to send out some tests rather than perform them in-house (25 percent), and having reduced lab staff (22 percent), among others.

The survey also aimed to understand if and how molecular testing performed for clinical trials was affected. About half of the respondents were performing molecular testing for cancer in clinical trials. Sixty-four percent of respondents that perform such testing report that the testing had been affected by the pandemic—23 percent reported a significant effect and 41 percent a slight effect.

The top two effects were a decrease in or halting of newly enrolled patients and patients being unable or reluctant to travel outside the home.

About 40 percent of respondents said the pandemic negatively affected the turnaround time for any of the molecular cancer tests their lab offers, and staffing shortages were the top reason for longer TATs.

The full AMP report is at www.amp.org/advocacy/sars-cov-2-survey.

In a separate AMP analysis released in March, on the work effort in molecular test interpretation, 103 molecular professionals from the AMP and American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics reported that their efforts spent on data analysis, interpretation, and reporting for molecular diagnostic tests were not reimbursed sufficiently. The respondents strongly agreed that access, data, and decision-making would improve with better reimbursement.