Ten Years of Lateral Flow Immunoassay Technique Applications: Trends, Challenges and Future Perspectives

Abstract

The Lateral Flow Immunoassay (LFIA) is by far one of the most successful analytical platforms to perform the on-site detection of target substances. LFIA can be considered as a sort of lab-in-a-hand and, together with other point-of-need tests, has represented a paradigm shift from sample-to-lab to lab-to-sample aiming to improve decision making and turnaround time. The features of LFIAs made them a very attractive tool in clinical diagnostic where they can improve patient care by enabling more prompt diagnosis and treatment decisions. The rapidity, simplicity, relative cost-effectiveness, and the possibility to be used by nonskilled personnel contributed to the wide acceptance of LFIAs. As a consequence, from the detection of molecules, organisms, and (bio)markers for clinical purposes, the LFIA application has been rapidly extended to other fields, including food and feed safety, veterinary medicine, environmental control, and many others. This review aims to provide readers with a 10-years overview of applications, outlining the trends for the main application fields and the relative compounded annual growth rates. Moreover, future perspectives and challenges are discussed.

Lateral flow assays (LFA) as an alternative medical diagnosis method for detection of virus species: The intertwine of nanotechnology with sensing strategies

“…Lateral flow assays (LFA) are the most recently used approaches for biosensing and quantifying numerous analytes, including different viruses [ 17 ]. The technical principle of LFAs was derived from the latex agglutination test.…”

“…LFAs application in medicine are highly versatile and can be used for diagnosis, prognosis, screening, monitoring, and surveillance. Unlike conventional methods, they can be used outside of high-tech laboratories and are applied in hospital wards, clinics, health centers, physicians’ offices, and also can be used by patients themselves for self-diagnosis[ 17 ]. This review aims to discuss the recent developments of LFA devices in detection of different viral diseases.…”

Lateral Flow Immunochromatography Assay for Detection of Furosemide in Slimming Health Foods

“…Lateral flow immunochromatography assay (LFIA), which is simple, rapid and low-cost, has been widely used in food safety, environmental monitoring and medical diagnosis in recent years [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. AuNPs have many advantages as a mature labeling material, such as simple preparation, short labeling time, good stability and low cost [ 30 , 31 ].…”

Reducing Unspecific Protein Adsorption in Microfluidic Papers Using Fiber-Attached Polymer Hydrogels

“…In a recent study, the term ASSURED has been changed to REASSURED, proposing the inclusion of real-time connectivity to smart phones for superior read-out and decision making, as well as ease of specimen collection [ 2 ]. Cellulose is a very inexpensive, sustainable, and chemically stable starting material, and papermaking is a well-established process, making potential POC µPADs a reasonable candidate for (RE)ASSURED diagnostics [ 1 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Dipstick and lateral flow tests have been known for more than 60 years and were originally designed for clinical diagnostics [ 10 ].…”

“…One general limitation of LFTs is their low sensitivity (i.e., S/N ratio) when compared to tests that are carried out in an analytical laboratory [ 9 , 17 , 23 ]. This low S/N ratio can result from multiple sources, such as light scattering in the read-out zone or the retention of analyte across the length of the assay.…”