POINT-OF-CARE MONITORING AND DIAGNOSTICS FOR RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS AND MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Abstract

In this work the POCEMON diagnostic platform is presented. The platform aims to providing early prognosis and diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and multiple sclerosis (MS) autoimmune diseases at the point of care. The objective of the POCEMON platform is the development of a diagnostic lab-on-chip device based on genomic microarrays of HLA-typing. The POCEMON will advance and promote the primary health care across Europe by supporting: a) point-of-care diagnostics, b) monitoring of immune system status and c) management of the chronic MS and RA autoimmune diseases. The platform combines highend computational tools based on microfluidics, microelectronics, microarrays and intelligent diagnosis algorithms. Clinical and genomic data are collected from patients with the RA and MS diseases. The clinical data and the selected associated SNPs are modelled using data mining techniques to allow the knowledge modeling framework to provide the diagnosis for new patients performing the point-of-care test. The microfluidic LOC device supplies the diagnostic component of the platform with a set of SNPs associated with the diseases. The knowledge-based decision support system combines this genomic information with the clinical data of the patient to obtain the diagnostic outcome.