Abstract
This article presents a compact, low-cost, robust, and flexible test platform for determining the concentration of drugs in fluids. This device is based on a PVC foil card containing copper conductive foils in which disposable paper test strips are inserted. The paper test strips are overlaid with deposition of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) acting as a sensing layer. When a paper test strip is inserted into the test card, the conductive path between two copper lines is established. A drop of test fluid on the sensing MWCNT layer changes the conductivity in a concentration-dependent manner, enabling calculation of the drug concentration after measurement of the electrical resistance at the copper terminals. An equivalent electrical circuit was also proposed to model the response of the fabricated sensor. It was shown that model parameters are dependent on the concentration of the cytostatic drug methotrexate. Additionally, the fabricated sensor demonstrated the ability to differentiate the same concentration of methotrexate and cyclophosphamide. The complete readout electronics and polynomial transfer function for calculating drug concentrations were also developed and are presented.
Highlights
During the previous decade, the use of novel technologies has been widely exploited in applied science in order to create portable, user-friendly, and point-of-care sensing platforms
With parameter estimation of equivalent circuit elements, we showed that our system can distinguish the same concentration of two different drugs
The bottom substrate layer was prepared from Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) foil, transparent and physically flexible, with dimensions of 7:5 cm × 4 cm
Summary
The use of novel technologies has been widely exploited in applied science in order to create portable, user-friendly, and point-of-care sensing platforms. Paper-based microfluidic devices represent a practical solution for testing in a variety of domains such as clinical, environmental, food, and forensic applications [1, 2]. Advancing the state of the art, in research presented in this paper, we are not limited just to the development of a platform for expedited detection of anticancer drug type and concentrations. The fluid placed on top of the paper strip can be detected by measuring the resistance at the end of the thin copper foil Such an approach is a simple, cost-effective technique for the rapid detection of different fluids (approximately 1 minute is required). A proofof-concept readout portable electronic system was developed for processing and displaying the measured results providing the complete solution for in situ anticancer drug detection
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