(Invited) Low Cost Paper Based Bilirubin Sensor Integrated with Smartphone APP for Point-of-Care Neonatal and Adult Jaundice Diagnostics

Abstract

Accumulation of excessive bilirubin induces hyperbilirubinemia and neonatal jaundice, and is a signal of adult liver diseases. Currently, the mainstream bilirubin detection is conducted in hospital pathological laboratories, which is expensive and time-consuming. To release the heavy burden of laboratory-based tests and to provide point-of-care testing and feedback to patients, recently some handheld optical devices have been developed for blood bilirubin measurement; however, they still require professional operation and uneconomical for home use. In this regard, a lower-cost and non-powered paper-based analytical device is developed for fast and point-of-care quantitative measurement of blood bilirubin levels in jaundiced neonates and hepatopathy adults. The design achieves plasma separation from whole blood and optical quantification of the chromogenic results by a specially designed smartphone APP. Especially, for jaundiced neonates, the APP not only calculates the bilirubin levels but also suggests the essential therapy if the detected bilirubin level versus the age of the baby is at risk. It is believed that this low-cost design provides a home-use solution for parents/patients to monitor the health conditions of newborn babies/themselves.