Abstract
Various types of chronic diseases (CD) are the leading causes of disability and death worldwide. While those diseases are chronic in nature, accurate and timely clinical decision making is critically required. Current diagnosis procedures are often lengthy and costly, which present a major bottleneck for effective CD healthcare. Rapid, reliable and low-cost diagnostic tools at point-of-care (PoC) are therefore on high demand. Owing to miniaturization, lab-on-chip (LoC) technology has high potential to enable improved biomedical applications in terms of low-cost, high-throughput, ease-of-operation and analysis. In this direction, research toward developing new LoC-based PoC systems for CD diagnosis is fast growing into an emerging area. Some studies in this area began to incorporate digital and mobile technologies. Here we review the recent developments of this area with the focus on chronic respiratory diseases (CRD), diabetes, and chronic kidney diseases (CKD). We conclude by discussing the challenges, opportunities and future perspectives of this field.
Highlights
Chronic diseases (CD), which are characterized by their prolonged disease period with persistent symptoms, are one of the leading causes for death worldwide,[1] and account for 70% of all healthcare expenditures.[2]
CD present a major health threat to both the aging population and the youth; and CD have a higher chance of leading to death for patients in source-limited regions according to statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO).[3]
Through the course of CD progression, patients often suffer from various acute health problems and complications, which results in lower life quality.[4]
Summary
Various types of chronic diseases (CD) are the leading causes of disability and death worldwide While those diseases are chronic in nature, accurate and timely clinical decision making is critically required. Lab-on-chip (LoC) technology has high potential to enable improved biomedical applications in terms of low-cost, high-throughput, ease-of-operation and analysis. In this direction, research toward developing new LoC-based PoC systems for CD diagnosis is fast growing into an emerging area. Research toward developing new LoC-based PoC systems for CD diagnosis is fast growing into an emerging area Some studies in this area began to incorporate digital and mobile technologies. We conclude by discussing the challenges, opportunities and future perspectives of this field. npj Digital Medicine (2018)1:7 ; doi:10.1038/s41746-017-0014-0
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