Commonwealth Diagnostics International, Inc. (CDI) is pleased to announce its participation in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (the VA’s) Community Care Network (CCN). The CCN is the VA’s direct link with specialized community providers, like CDI, to ensure that over 9 million enrolled Veterans receive adequate choice of and access to proper, timely, and high-quality healthcare.
CDI’s participation in the CCN provides Veterans easier, streamlined access to CDI’s state-of-the-art laboratory in Salem, Massachusetts and its portfolio of non-invasive gastrointestinal diagnostic tests, which include CDI’s take-home breath test kits for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) and multiple carbohydrate (lactose, fructose, and sucrose) malabsorption disorders.
It is well understood that Veterans disproportionately suffer from gastrointestinal disturbances following deployment. For example, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which affects up to 35 million people in the U.S. alone, occurs in up to 33% of Gulf War (GW) Veterans. This higher-than-average rate of IBS in Veterans can be linked to alterations in the gut microflora during deployment which results in increased bacterial proliferation in the gut. This bacterial overgrowth is a common gastrointestinal disorder diagnosed as SIBO. The connection between SIBO, IBS, and deployment potentially explains the gastrointestinal inflammation exhibited by 25-32 percent of the 700,000 U.S. veterans who served in the Persian Gulf War and now suffer from Gulf War Illness (GWI).
“We know that many Veterans returning home from service have experienced acute gastrointestinal events and symptoms, like severe abdominal pain and diarrhea, and as a result suffer from an unnecessarily impaired quality of life,” said CDI’s Chief Executive Officer, Craig Strasnick. “CDI’s participation in the VA’s Community Care Network now opens a door to these Veterans to quickly receive a clinically useful diagnosis of a disease which can be managed with a variety of available therapeutic and dietary options.”
“We aim to be as patient-centric as possible in designing and delivering our products and services. Our nation’s Veterans especially deserve to be at the center of their healthcare decisions,” Strasnick said.
From those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to our beloved aging Veterans, CDI stands ready to provide the diagnostic tools and clinically significant data needed to detect SIBO and to aid Veterans and their healthcare providers in making critical decisions to treat and manage these chronic ailments. For more information on CDI and our testing please talk to your healthcare provider, visit our website at www.commdx.com, or reach out directly via email to info@commdx.com or 888-258-5966.
