Clinical algorithm for excluding patients identified in virtual imaging

1 . A clinical algorithm for selecting a patient for invasive testing, the method comprising

performing a virtual colonoscopy on a patient:

collecting a colonic effluent sample from the patient;

performing a molecular assay on the colonic effluent; and

performing an invasive analysis on the patient if the patient is identified as positive for a disease in both the virtual colonoscopy and the molecular assay.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the patient is human.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the molecular assay is performed on the colonic effluent only if the patient is identified as positive in the virtual colonoscopy.

4 . A method for excluding patients from undergoing an invasive colonic testing, the method comprising:

performing a virtual colonoscopy on a population of subjects;

collecting a colonic effluent from each subject in the population;

identifying candidates for invasive colonic testing as those subjects that are positive for indicia of colonic disease in the virtual colonoscopy; and,

excluding candidates from the invasive colonic testing if they are negative in a molecular assay performed on their colonic effluent.

5 . A patient care algorithm comprising:

performing a virtual colonoscopy on a subject;

performing a molecular analysis on a colonic sample obtained from the subject if the virtual colonoscopy is positive

performing an invasive colonic test on the subject if the molecular analysis is positive.

6 . The method of any one of claims 1 - 5 , wherein the molecular assay is an assay capable of detecting one or more abnormal nucleic acids associated with a disease.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the disease is colon cancer.