Executive Summary : | A huge number of common people often face major challenges to access proper medical care, particularly in terms general pathological facilities. In this context, the primary hindering issues include limited communication system, infrastructure, lack of efficient manpower and restricted access to resources for diagnostic purposes. In this scenario, multifaceted initiatives have been taken worldwide to address some of these issues by moving towards lab-on-a-chip based point of care diagnosis. Such devices provide a delivery option for conducting laboratory based testing closer to the patient with rapid turn out. The development of these devices has been an indispensable area of modern scientific research from both academic and industrial perspectives which is attributed to the potential features such as higher sensitivity, minimum sample consumption and cost effectiveness.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), anemia is defined as insufficiency in the number of red blood cells (RBCs) and consequently a quantitative reduction of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying component of red blood cells. Such decrement in RBC count also reduces the hematocrit level, which is the proportion of blood volume occupied by RBCs, and is estimated by cell number and size. Global emergence of anemic diseases and its association with malnutrition have been a severe health issue in recent times. The situation has become even more alarming in Indian scenario where malnutrition is crippling a large section of the society. Insufficient supply of food as well as increasing adulteration of bio-consumables makes the condition worse and consequently, India is facing a serious medical crisis with a large prevalence of nutritional anemia. Lacks of certain minerals and folate or vitamin result in low red blood cell count, and thus reducing the hemoglobin level of human body causing severe anemia. Such condition leads to several consequences such as pediatric and pregnancy morbidity and mortality.
Early diagnosis of nutritional anemia has a profound significance in order to expedite its relevant treatment. Point of care lab-on-a-chip systems can be a potential route to detect such anemic conditions with rapid turn out and offer a cost effective diagnosis which may have an extensive relevance in the healthcare system of developing nations.
Several schemes have been proposed and implemented both quantitatively and qualitatively for such bio-analytical measurements. Electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) has been emerged recently as a strong potential method due to the increasing demand of point of care diagnosis. |