Point-of-care testing (POCT) is a laboratory-medicine discipline that is evolving rapidly in analytical scope and clinical application. In this review, we first describe the state of the art of ...medical-laboratory tests that can be performed near the patient. At present, POCT ranges from basic blood-glucose measurement to complex viscoelastic coagulation assays. POCT shortens the time to clinical decision-making about additional testing or therapy, as delays are no longer caused by transport and preparation of clinical samples, and biochemical-test results are rapidly available at the point of care. Improved medical outcome and lower costs may ensue.
Recent, evolving technological advances enable the development of novel POCT instruments. We review the underlying analytical techniques. If new instruments are not yet in practical use, it is often hard to decide whether the underlying analytical principle has real advantage over former methods. However, future utilization of POCT also depends on health-care trends and new areas of application. But, even today, it can be assumed that, for certain applications, near-patient testing is a useful complement to conventional laboratory analyses.
Skin interstitial fluid (ISF) holds great potential as a highly desirable sample resource for point‐of‐care testing (POCT), where the key is to effectively collect target biomarkers from ISF. ...Hydrogel microneedle patch has great promise for ISF extraction. However, it is challenging to recover target biomarkers from the extracted skin ISF in hydrogel microneedle patches in an easy‐administrated, fast, and bulky instrument‐free manner. Herein, a hydrogel microneedle patch made of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and chitosan (CS) for POCT based on the ISF is developed. The phase transition property of PVA/CS hydrogel makes the microneedles stiff when dry, which is beneficial to easily penetrate into skin. Meanwhile, the highly porous microstructure of hydrogel offers good swelling ability for extraction of ISF and the thermal degradation property of PVA makes it convenient to quickly and efficiently recover target biomarkers from microneedle patch. The capability of this platform for POCT applications is further demonstrated by successful detections of typical biomarkers collected from the mimetic skin and monitoring the glucose level in rabbit skins during a day. The developed hydrogel microneedle patch holds the advantages of extraction of skin ISF and recovery of biomarkers, thus presenting as a powerful platform for skin ISF‐based POCT applications.
The hydrogel microneedle patches made of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and chitosan hold the advantages of extraction of skin interstitial fluid (ISF) and recovery of biomarkers and are successfully used for detections of four typical biomarkers (glucose, chloride, lactate, and protein) from mimetic skin and monitoring glucose level in rabbit skins. They present as a powerful platform for skin ISF‐based point‐of‐care testing (POCT) applications.
Diverse chemicals and some physical phenomena recently introduced in nanotechnology have enabled scientists to develop useful devices in the field of food sciences. Concerning such developments, ...detecting foodborne pathogenic bacteria is now an important issue. These kinds of bacteria species have demonstrated severe health effects after consuming foods and high mortality related to acute cases. The most leading path of intoxication and infection has been through food matrices. Hence, quick recognition of foodborne bacteria agents at low concentrations has been required in current diagnostics. Lateral flow assays (LFAs) are one of the urgent and prevalently applied quick recognition methods that have been settled for recognizing diverse types of analytes. Thus, the present review has stressed on latest developments in LFAs‐based platforms to detect various foodborne pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella, Listeria, Escherichia coli, Brucella, Shigella, Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium botulinum, and Vibrio cholera. Proper prominence has been given on exactly how the labels, detection elements, or procedures have affected recent developments in the evaluation of diverse bacteria using LFAs. Additionally, the modifications in assays specificity and sensitivity consistent with applied food processing techniques have been discussed. Finally, a conclusion has been drawn for highlighting the main challenges confronted through this method and offered a view and insight of thoughts for its further development in the future.
The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 poses a serious threat to human life and health. A rapid nucleic acid tests can effectively curb the spread of the disease. With the advantages of fluorescent RNA aptamers, ...low background and high sensitivity. A variety of fluorescent RNA aptamer sensors have been developed for the detection of nucleic acid. Here, we report a hypersensitive detection platform in which SARS-CoV-2 initiates RTF-EXPAR to amplify trigger fragments. This activation leads to the reassembled of the SRB2 fluorescent RNA aptamer, restoring its secondary structure for SR-DN binding and turn-on fluorescence. The platform completes the assay in 30 min and all reactions occur in one tube. The detection limit is as low as 116 aM. Significantly, the platform's quantitative analyses were almost identical to qPCR results in simulated tests of positive samples. In conclusion, the platform is sensitive, accurate and provides a new protocol for point-of-care testing of viruses.
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•A platform based on reassembled SRB2 to assist the RTF-EXPAR were constructed.•The detection limit for SARS-CoV-2 is as low as 116 aM.•The platform is highly specific, labelling-free and suitable for clinical sample testing.
Latar Belakang: Glukosa merupakan sumber energi utama yang dibutuhkan oleh tubuh. Metode pemeriksaan ini menggunakan metode GOD-PAP dan POCT dengan sampel yang sama dengan sampel darah vena dan ...kapiler. Metode glukosa oksidase (GOD-PAP) merupakan metode pemeriksaan yang spesifik untuk melakukan pengukuran kadar glukosa dalam serum atau plasma. Metode POCT merupakan pemeriksaan laboratorium sederhana. Pemeriksaan ini dapat dilakukan di luar laboratorium dengan hasil yang cepat,namun memiliki presisi dan akurasi yang kurang. Pemeriksaan darah vena dan kapiler merupakan pemeriksaan glukosa darah yang umum diterapkan. Tujuan Penelitian: Untuk mengetahui ada perbedaan dari kadar glukosa darah dengan Metode GOD-PAP dan POCT pada sampel darah vena dan darah kapiler. Metode Penelitian: Crossectional ,penelitian ini dilakukan di Rumah Sakit Muhammdiyah Palembang. Populasi yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah semua Mahasiswa Laki-laki Prodi S.Tr.Teknologi Laboratorium Medis IKesT Muhammadiyah Palembang yang berjumlah 23 orang dengan menggunakan Purposive Sampling. Hasil: Didapatkan hasil nilai rata-rata perbedaan kadar glukosa darah pada sampel darah vena dan kapiler, pada sampel darah vena metode GOD-PAP didapatkan hasil rata-rata 72.86 mg/dL, sedangkan pada darah vena metode POCT didapatkan nilai rata-rata 106,57 mg/dL dan sampel darah kapiler menggunakan metode GOD-PAP hasil rata-rata 85,12 mg/dL, sedangkan pada darah kapiler metode POCT didapatkan nilai rata-rata 88,61 mg/dL. Kesimpulan: Berdasarkan penelitian yang telah dilakukan metode yang direkomendasikan metode GOD-PAP karena metode ini memiliki ketelitiannya lebih tinggi, sehingga diperoleh hasil yang lebih akurat.
Nucleic acid detection offers critical information in diagnosing pathogen infection and monitoring disease treatment. Point-of-care testing (POCT), with ideal characteristics such as rapidness, ...user-friendly, sensitivity, specificity, and robustness, has drawn wide attention, especially in resource-poor settings where lack the healthcare infrastructure. Accompanied by the development of microfluidic technologies and new amplification methods, POCT of nucleic acids greatly improves health monitoring and prevents outbreak of infectious diseases. This review summarizes recent advances in diagnostics of nucleic acids in POC formats, and discusses challenges associated with POCT of nucleic acids.
•Point-of-care testing of nucleic acids greatly improves health monitoring and prevents outbreak of infectious diseases.•Portable platforms without complicated equipment or laborious operations allow for POCT in resource-limited settings.•Recent advances in diagnostics of nucleic acids in POC formats are reviewed.•The microfluidics-based techniques, including on-chip sample preparation, amplification, and signal read-out, are discussed.
Paper-based devices are a leading alternative among the main analytical tools for point-of-care testing, due to their portability, low-cost, and ease-of-use. Colorimetric readouts are the most common ...method of detection in these microfluidic devices, enabling qualitative, semi-quantitative and fully quantitative analysis of multiple analytes. There is a multitude of ways to obtain a colorimetric output in such devices, including nanoparticles, dyes, redox and pH indicators, and each has unique drawbacks and benefits. There are also multiple variables that impact the analysis of colorimetric reactions in microfluidic paper-based systems, including color homogeneity, image capture methods, and the data handling itself. Here, we present a critical review of recent developments and challenges of colorimetric detection on microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (μPADs), and present thoughts and insights towards future perspectives in the area to improve the use of colorimetric readouts in conjunction with μPADs.
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•An overview on the variables that impact the analysis of colorimetric reactions in μPADs is discussed.•A critical evaluation of how data-handling methods can affect colorimetric outputs is made.•General strategies to improve signal-to-noise ratio are suggested.•Thoughts and insights to improve the use of colorimetric readouts in conjunction with μPADs are presented.
PCR has been widely used in different fields including molecular biology, pathogen detection, medical diagnosis, food detection and etc. However, the difficulty of promoting PCR in on-site ...point-of-care testing reflects on challenges relative to its speed, convenience, complexity, and even cost. With the emerging state-of-art of microfluidics, rapid PCR can be achieved with more flexible ways in micro-reactors. PCR plays a critical role in the detection of SARS-CoV-2. Under this special background of COVID-19 pandemic, this review focuses on the latest rapid microfluidic PCR. Rapid PCR is concluded in two main features, including the reactor (type, size, material) and the implementation of thermal cycling. Especially, the compromise between speed and sensitivity with microfluidic PCR is explored based on the system ratio of (thermal cycling time)/(reactor size). Representative applications about the detection of pathogens and SARS-CoV-2 viruses based on rapid PCR or other isothermal amplification are discussed as well.
•Reviewing rapid PCR from both the reactor (type, size and material) and the implementation of thermal cycling.•Key characteristics of different implementations of thermal cycling (space- and time-domain based) were analyzed.•Convection PCR, as a special rapid nucleic acid amplification method, was discussed and compared with other rapid PCR.•To show the compromise between speed and sensitivity, the system ratio (thermal cycling time)/(reactor size) was defined.•Witnessing the global COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the key contribution of rapid PCR or isothermal amplification.
Immunoassay has been routinely used in hospitals and central labs. Nowadays, to further meet the requirement of widespread applications of immunoassays, it is urgently needed to produce a simplified, ...rapid and low-cost immunoassay to perform tests on site. To this end, paper-based point-of-care (POC) immunoassays have attracted intensive interests in recent years. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of the recent advances and emerging trends of paper-based POC immunoassays, including the fundamental components and work principles, various detection mechanisms and applications, and existing commercialized devices/products. At last, we envision three promising development directions for paper-based POC immunoassays.
Point of care testing (POCT) platforms are analytical devices used for rapid on-site sensing applications. POCT in sports science has attracted significant attention as the markers related to ...physiological changes and metabolism can be analysed on-site for monitoring an athlete's health, performance, recovery and even for doping control. POCT platforms also possess the potential to facilitate trainers in optimizing the training regimes for preventing injuries, track their nutrition, and could potentially assist sports committees to enforce effective doping control measures during and outside competitions. This review is a consolidated report on emerging trends in POCT platforms in sports science. The methodologies reported thus far that have already been applied or possess a potential to be applied for detection of various sports biomarkers are elaborated. A comprehensive outlook is further provided, which would aid efforts on development of POCT platforms for a wide range of applications.
•A holistic review on emerging trends in Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) platforms is presented.•Current status and potential POCT platforms for applications in sport science are discussed.•Important sports biomarkers and associated POCT platforms for their detection are reviewed.•An appealing review for sports science, diagnostics, materials engineering, chemistry and biochemistry disciplines.