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posted by janrinok on Thursday January 09 2020, @05:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-forget-to-study dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Biological Engineers at the University of Bath have developed a test that could help medics quickly diagnose urinary tract infections (UTIs), using a normal smartphone camera.

Similar in principle to a urine sample in just 25 minutes. As well as being far faster than existing testing, it could make accurate UTI testing more widely available in developing nations and remote regions thanks to its potential to be made portable, and far more cheaply than existing lab-based tests.

E. coli is present in 80 percent of bacterial UTIs, so if it is found it tells medical professionals that an antibiotic treatment is needed.

As well as a smartphone camera, the test, which could be adapted to detect a variety of bacterial infections, takes advantage of widely-available reagents and new micro-engineered materials. Researchers say the simplicity of the test, which has now passed the proof-of-concept stage, could deliver a new way to quickly identify treatments for patients in poorer or remote regions.

Described in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, the test uses antibodies to capture bacterial cells in very thin capillaries within a plastic strip, detecting and identifying the cells optically rather than through the microbiological methods currently used.

Dr. Nuno Reis, from Bath's Department of Chemical Engineering, led the development of the test. He says: "The test is small and portable—so it has major potential for use in primary care settings and in developing countries.

"Currently, bacterial infections in UTIs are confirmed via microbiological testing of a urine sample. That is accurate, but time-consuming, taking several days. We hope that giving medical professionals the ability to quickly rule in or rule out certain conditions will allow them to treat patients more quickly and help them make better decisions about the prescription of antibiotics."

The lack of rapid diagnostics for UTIs has in many cases led to a catch-all prescription of potentially unnecessary antibiotics, which increases the risk of bacteria becoming resistant to treatment—accepted as one of the biggest threats to global health and development.

The test is carried out by passing a urine sample over a ridged plastic micro-capillary strip, containing an immobilizing antibody able to recognize E. coli bacterial cells. If E. coli is present in the sample, antibodies in the reagents will bind with it, stopping it from passing through the section of plastic strip. Finally, an enzyme is added that causes a change in color that can be picked up by a smartphone camera.

The system also measures the concentration of E. coli in the sample by analyzing an image taken by the camera. The procedure is simple and could be manually operated or fully automated without any need for a mains power supply.

To date, bodies such as the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) have not granted approval to techniques that use smartphones—citing the potential for both non-lab conditions and software updates to the phone to make tests unscientific. But Dr. Reis hopes that the way the test uses a variable scale to digitally compare the pixels within an image will convince regulators to allow the treatment to move toward eventual production.

More information: Isabel P. Alves et al. Microfluidic smartphone quantitation of Escherichia coli in synthetic urine, Biosensors and Bioelectronics (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.bios.2019.111624


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @05:52AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @05:52AM (#941342)

    The lack of rapid diagnostics for UTIs has in many cases led to a catch-all prescription of potentially unnecessary antibiotics, which increases the risk of bacteria becoming resistant to treatment—accepted as one of the biggest threats to global health and development.

    First, the biggest threat to the heath and development in poor countries is the lack of heath care fullstop. Bacteria resistance is the biggest threat for developed nations.

    Second, instead of providing the poorest nations with cheap vaccines and antibiotics very likely to work and keep the poor bastards alive, this imposes the extra burden of costs with gizmos that only measure and treat nothing and then the cost of developing the infrastructure required for the gizmos to work.

    But yeah fucking idiots who never lived in wildness imagine they know better.

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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 09 2020, @06:47PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday January 09 2020, @06:47PM (#941542) Journal

    First, the biggest threat to the heath and development in poor countries is the lack of heath care fullstop.

    Also the case in the United States of America.