Novel Fingerprick Test Expands Access In Basic Medical World

New findings to be featured at the 2015 AACC Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo will involve a novel fingerprick test that could help expand access to basic medical testing in the developing world. As clinical laboratory tests play a crucial role in making sure patients get appropriate care, there are still a relatively small number of labs and clinics that can afford instruments needed for such tests. Researchers are hopeful that this and other advancements could help to better perform common clinical diagnostics.

"In areas where cost and efficiency are of paramount importance, labs will be able to consolidate all instrumentation into a single QDx InstaLab," said Dr. Vijaywanth Mathur, head of research and development at DiaSys Diagnostics India, in a news release. "This breakthrough technology will revolutionize and enable quality healthcare for all in both low-to-middle-income and high-income countries, and particularly in rural, semi-rural, second tier, and third tier cities where there is no access to healthcare diagnostics or the cost per test is so high."

As it stands, health experts estimate that just about one third of the world's population does not have adequate access to quality healthcare due to a range of barriers from limited geographic accessibility to a lack of affordable services. For clinical laboratories in particular, many are poorly outfitted and sparsely distributed in low-income countries.

At the AACC's 2015 Annual Meeting, researchers from DiaSys Diagnostics India in Mumbai are going to present the first point-of-care device, known as QDx InstaLab, which can perform all of the clinical tests that labs routinely order as part of yearly physicals to help evaluate function and check for conditions including some of the following: diabetes, kidney disease and liver disease. Furthermore, the QDx InstaLab can test cholesterol levels to screen for risk of heart disease or to monitor treatment for it and screen for bleeding problems or monitor treatment for inappropriate blood clotting, too. The device works by analyzing a few drops of blood from a fingerprick via inexpensive microfluidic cartridge technology together with novel nanomaterial-based plastic electrochemical biosensors, providing results in 3 to 10 minutes or less.

To further study the product's accuracy, researchers performed tests on 40 to 70 patient blood samples and compared the results with those of standard laboratory instruments, comparing the results with those of standard laboratory instruments. Findings revealed that the tests run on QDx InstaLab have a coefficient of variation < 3%, an R² value > 0.95, and an interference bias < 10%, which signifies that the QDX InstaLab is reliable and meets all the performance specifications of a lab.

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