Endotoxin Tests

Many patients may feel concerned when they hear their doctor mention an Endotoxin test is needed in order to find out what's wrong medically with them. However these tests are done routinely as they focus on many things that help medical professionals discover the type of disease a patient may suffer from. A fundamental test that is a safety requirement in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industry, an Endotoxin test will tell a doctor if harmful bacteria has entered a patients bloodstream and is causing symptoms such as fever or the more severe case: septic shock.

What Endotoxin testing does:

An Endotoxin test detects the bacterial toxins that are released when a bacterial cell dies in the body. While bacterial death sounds like a good thing for someone who is sick, these toxins can build up in the body and cause the aforementioned symptoms, and can be deadly. A simple blood or stool sample can be tested by a pharmaceutical team and can reveal through an Endotoxin test whether the symptoms are a result of bacterial cell death or not. It is important to note that endotoxins cannot be removed from the body by using normal sterilization methods, and require treatment. The most common example would be in a situation involving botulism.

Over 70 million patients undergo an endotoxin test when they go to the doctor for treatment of an illness as these bacterial cells are also present in virus infections. It is a valuable test that helps doctors test their patients.

Where to find more information:

This information and other valuable resources can be found on several websites hosted by lab services that specialize in this form of testing. Many microbiology labs support patents as they seek to know more about the procedures being conducted by their doctors.