Neonatal point-of-care testing

Spicy Recipe for At-Home Diagnostics: Smart Salivary Sensors for Point-of-Care Diagnosis of Jaundice

“…Neonatal jaundice or hyperbilirubinemia can be considered perhaps one of the most important concerns of parents in the first days of a newborn’s life. The high rate of morbidity (>80% of neonates) and mortality [∼1% of live births during the early (0–6 days)-neonatal period in low-income countries], as well as irreparable caused by the late diagnosis and treatment of jaundice, even in developed countries, can be regarded as reasons behind this concern. − Given the importance of diagnosing and monitoring hyperbilirubinemia, a wide variety of optical and electrochemical methods have been developed to determine bilirubin through blood, ,− skin, , urine, , tear, and saliva , analysis. However, they often require high-cost, bulky, and sophisticated equipment, trained operators, as well as toxic reagents.…”

“…6,24−28 This issue is of greater importance particularly at sites far from centralized laboratory facilities and point-of-care (POC) applications, where neonates blood sampling, preprocessing, and analyzing is accompanied by serious operational and equipment limitations/challenges. 7 Aiming to address this utmost important necessity, we herein introduce a smart easy-to-fabricate/use sensing bioplatform that enables noninvasive optical monitoring of bilirubin in saliva at the POC. In this work, for the first time, the high sensing capability of curcumin as a natural pigment isolated from turmeric is demonstrated in a paper-based assay for optical monitoring of bilirubin in saliva.…”

“…However, they often require high-cost, bulky, and sophisticated equipment, trained operators, as well as toxic reagents. Moreover, the need of blood-based tests for high-volume and invasive blood sampling, and suffering the nonblood-based tests from low correlation with the results of blood-based tests and consequently their low accuracy and reliability limit the application of the developed sensors for on-site bilirubin monitoring. , There are also various commercial bilirubinometers with the ability to transcutaneously monitor bilirubin, which, despite being noninvasive and easy-to-use, have low accuracy, precision, and reliability compared to blood-based bilirubin detection methods . Thus, even today, on the eve of healthcare 5.0, in spite of significant progress in diagnostics, the development of efficient smart sensors capable of noninvasively monitoring bilirubin and diagnosing jaundice with high accuracy and reliability of bilirubin blood tests is still an unmet high demand. ,− This issue is of greater importance particularly at sites far from centralized laboratory facilities and point-of-care (POC) applications, where neonates blood sampling, preprocessing, and analyzing is accompanied by serious operational and equipment limitations/challenges …”