Grizly and redpencil, you paint a gloomy outlook for CST for the...

Grizly and redpencil, you paint a gloomy outlook for CST for the next 6 months - and you might be right.

No more formal reporting of results for 6 months - and CST isn't very generous in keeping us informing of progress in the meantime.

But how about another possible scenario?

In a couple of weeks probably the CDC will release their guidelines for QFT as a diagostic test for latent tuberculosis. (CST have told us they hope guidelines will come up by end of March).

Just say the guidelines are very favourable for QFT.

I think if this happens this could be a major price re-rating event for CST.

Because CDC is highly respected and because the policy makers might feel they should comply with the recommendation unless they have a really good reason not to, then maybe those policy-makers will 'flick the switch" and convert to QFT.

It's not a practical big deal for the policy makers to comply with a guideline recommending they use QFT - the test is offered by lots of path labs now.

It's not as if the guidelines are recommending policy makers starting testing when they didn't have to test before - the guidelines are simply recommending a switch in the test used.

i suspect most decision-makers would be familiar with QFT and its advantages by now- after all, there are over 400 paper on the topic - and enough leaders in the Tb field have endorsed QFT's advantages.

Maybe the decision-makers are now at the stage of being just about convinced and they just need a tiny nudge to get them over teh line - and that nudge may be the highly respected CDC guidelines.

That's why I hope the guidelines are very favourable for QFT.

And in my ideal scenario, it gets even better:

Because the CDC is highly respected around the world and because the US is a leader in change, hopefully other countries will follow suit and switch to QFT en masse too.

If my ideal scenario unflods, instead of teh next 6 months being gloomy, they could in fact be very buoyant!

stranger things have happened!