Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Point-of-Care Diagnostics
Rapid tests that are low-cost and portable are the
first line of defence in healthcare
systems. Dipstick and lateral-
ow are the two universal assay formats as they are
lightweight and compact, and provide qualitative results without external instru-
mentation. However, existing formats have limitations in the quanti
fl
cation of ana-
lyte concentrations. Hence, the demand for sample preparation, improved sensitivity
and user-interface has challenged the commercial products. Recently, capabilities,
sensors and readout devices were expanded to multiplexable assays platforms, which
might transcend the capabilities of existing design format of diagnostic tests. This
chapter outlines the evolution of diagnostic devices and current trends in the
development of qualitative and quantitative sensing devices for applications in
healthcare, veterinary medicine, environmental monitoring and food safety. The
chapter also discusses design parameters for diagnostics, their functionalisation to
increase the capabilities and the performance, emerging sensing platforms and
readout technologies. The factors which limit the emerging rapid diagnostics to
become commercial products are also discussed.
The life expectancy has grown worldwide, which also increased the healthcare
spending [
1
,
2
]. For example, 720 million people will be aged 65 or older by 2020.
Currently four in
five people over the age of 75 take at least one prescribed
medicine, and this trend is set to increase [
3
]. For some of the medications, large
pharma
find it the hard to recover R&D costs while the pressure from the regulatory
agencies also increased for the use of new drugs as the
first line of defence based on
ef
cacy and cost. Hence, the global healthcare trends and ever increasing pressure
from regulatory agencies put a strong case for the development of diagnostics for
healthcare monitoring as well as the evaluation of drug ef
cacies in clinical trials.
All these considerations parallels governments
'
and insurance companies
'
interests
in obtaining the best performance possible and treatment bene
ts they support.
These trends are behind the driving force for the development of diagnostics that
can reduce the healthcare costs by developing effective drugs and identifying dis-
eases and conditions at an early stage.
The major stumbling block in monitoring and controlling diseases/contaminations
remains delivering simple, low-cost and robust diagnostic tests [
4
,
5
]. In the devel-
oping world, the basic healthcare infrastructure and trained healthcare personnel are
