In the present medical scenario, for case of any diagnosis to occur, samples are required to be sent to laboratories. The whole process takes a long time, thereby creating unnecessary worry. In addition, the possibility of providing immediate results to patients would also help curtail the spread of infections, enhance patients’ quality of life and decrease the burden from the shoulders of already busy clinicians.
A new innovation might soon be able to make this though a reality. A research team has managed to create a hand-held device to rapid test for bacterial infections. As per evidence, it can produce accurate and reliable results in less than an hour, thus, removing the need to bring samples to a lab. The new device is a big advancement for Rapid Medical Diagnostic Market as it will help patients visiting doctor’s offices with symptoms of illness to directly leave with a scientifically confirmed diagnosis in very little time. This will save them from the waste of energy and time on repeated visits to the doctor.
The team’s proof-of-concept demonstrated the test’s efficacy in diagnosing urinary tract diseases through real clinical samples. Moreover, the researchers also tried to make the test detect other types of bacteria and viruses, especially COVID-19. In the future, they might also test its viability for detecting cancer.
The new DNA-based device is similar to a blood-glucose monitor. It contains a microchip responsible for analyzing a droplet of bodily fluid such as saliva, blood, or urine through molecules that have the ability to identify specific protein signature of each infection. The technology is about the size of a USB disk and is needed to be plugged into a smartphone which then shows the result. The device is immensely useful as it can easily differentiate between the strains of the same bacteria that have antibiotic treatment from others that would be resistant to antibiotics. This may become a critical skill that will help battle the ever-increasing problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The best aspect of the newly developed technology is that patients would be able to get better treatment and faster results, thus, avoiding severe complications. Further, it can reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics which might be essential for battling against antimicrobial resistance. Overall, doctors will now be able to turn their suspicions based on skill and experience into scientific-based proof.
The researchers have revealed that they are currently testing an adaptation of the same technology for coronavirus. Since the technology is pretty versatile, it can be adapted for COVID-19 testing as well. The most intriguing aspect of the research is that it makes the world a step closer to democratizing disease diagnosis and subsequent management.