Hand-held ultrasound devices and other diagnostic techniques are being developed for use in remote areas.

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Nevertheless, it faces a fundamental problem that affects all nations, rich or poor: Everyone must use the same decades-old drugs and diagnostic techniques.

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The FDA also is exploring improved diagnostic techniques using virtual patients.

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Professor Vaskar Saha, an expert on childhood cancer from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, told BBC News Online that survival rates could be improved in the developing world by relatively simply measures, such as training medical staff in diagnostic techniques.

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The Association of British Insurers has called for whiplash injuries to be assessed by an accredited medical expert, trained in the latest diagnostic techniques and able to take into account the circumstances of the collision rather than the claimant's reported symptoms.

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Although developing new diagnostic techniques is cheap compared with developing new drugs (largely because they do not have to undergo such comprehensive and expensive clinical trials), it is frequently not cheap enough to create tests that will be commercially viable if their only market is in the poor world.

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The A1C assay, which has been used for nearly 30 years to determine how well a patient controls diabetes, is a more stable, reliable diagnostic tool than the techniques currently in use, the authors of the report said.

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It also says these same bioluminescence techniques could be used as a diagnostic indicator of pollution levels or even as a biosensor for monitoring diseases like diabetes.

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