What’s Next on the Point-of-Care Testing Menu?

From SARS-CoV-2 to cardiac biomarkers, a steady stream of IVD innovation shows no signs of letting up

Article published in Clinical Laboratory News featuring Dr. Nick Collier

While point-of-care (POC) testing in recent years has drastically altered how patients are treated for conditions such as diabetes, HIV, and cardiovascular disease, new advancements on the horizon are expected to vastly improve near-patient treatment for strokes, infectious diseases, and cancer, according to experts.

In vitro diagnostics (IVD) companies are working to improve specificity and sensitivity of devices so that testing can be done on smaller specimen samples, said Nick Collier, PhD, chief technology officer for Sagentia Medical, a contract research organization based in the U.K. “There is a lot of interest in reducing sample size—using capillary blood samples to do testing, for example.”

At the same time, technology is getting smaller, cheaper, and more sophisticated. Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices, which require just a few drops of blood, already are in use and potentially could be more widely deployed, especially in areas with limited healthcare resources. In addition, diagnostics companies increasingly are combining different technologies into single platforms so users can perform multiple tests on one sample, Collier added.

To read the full article, please follow this link to Clinical Laboratory News.