The Defense Health Agency has extended a pilot program that covers many now-common laboratory genetic tests and added five more to improve diagnostics and care for patients with breast, blood and prostate cancer and suspicious-looking moles or skin lesions.
The Pentagon’s health arm announced Thursday that it has extended its pilot program that covers more than 45 laboratory-developed tests, or LDTs, through July 18, 2028.
The program was introduced in 2013 as a way for the Defense Department to cover some tests that didn’t fall under the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory process, including BRCA1 and BRCA2 tests for breast cancer risk, in-utero tests for cystic fibrosis, and genetic tests for rare diseases.
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According to an update Thursday to the Tricare Manual, the newly covered tests include the Biotheranostics Breast Cancer Index, which can help predict the risk of a patient’s breast cancer returning, helping guide treatment options; the DermTech Pigmented Lesion Assay, which can help rule out melanoma; and the FoundationOne Heme test, a genetic profile that identifies cancers like leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, as well as some pediatric cancers and sarcomas.
The update also includes two tests by MDxHealth for men who have previously had prostate cancer and have markers that may indicate that they still have it.
The regulation…
