The old adage, “A stitch in time saves nine” holds true in the ambit of early diagnosis of infection followed by timely treatment. Early detection translates to a world of difference in disease outcomes and patient prognosis.
Dr. Deepthi Appanna, an anesthesiologist, who worked at a low-resource government setup summed up one of the lacunae in infection diagnosis: a patient’s blood culture report was received, sometimes after 5 days since the pathology lab was closed on weekends. And, due to delays in getting the reports of a patient’s ailment in time, there are instances where a patient’s life is lost. Mortality due to pathogen infection is higher in patients with underlying conditions and hence, early detection is critical for patient care.
Diagnostics is one of the key technology focus areas in Healthcare along with Preventive Care and Therapeutics. Preventive care technology such as vaccination has saved millions of lives and billions in funds that would have otherwise been used for disease treatment and care. Innovative therapeutics for the care of afflicted patients in areas such as cancer medicine, antiviral drugs, and antibiotics are improving the quality of life and life expectancy rate among patients. Rapid, accurate, and point-of-care diagnostics for disease treatment are invaluable. Antibiotics are callously prescribed for infections that may be viral, bacterial, or even fungal. Devices for early detection of bacterial pathogens allow physicians to switch over from a broad-spectrum antibiotic to a more specific antibiotic. It lowers the costs, minimizes drug resistance, and improves the patient’s condition.
India being an emerging economy, our challenges are unique and it is difficult to find widespread state-of-the-art central laboratory infrastructure for diagnostics. There is a paucity especially outside Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities in the country for effective infection diagnosis. Recent advances in hand-held devices show promise to replace the requirements of big labs in resource-limited settings. Point-of-care systems that enable diagnosis at the location of the patient are being continually researched to decentralize it. Innovations such as hand-held ultrasound scanners, pocket ECG devices, and pocket microscopes like the Foldscope are ushering in a new era of portable devices. The Covid-19 outbreak has further cast a spotlight on the need for rapid point-of-care detection moving diagnostics away from central laboratories to non-traditional locations closer to the patient, where the data can be recorded and transmitted with portable devices or smartphones.
In comparison to the current nascent decentralized diagnostic systems, the next generation of early diagnostic devices is envisioned to evolve into sophisticated and miniaturized systems empowered with artificial intelligence. It is envisaged to enhance the quality of life, with the introduction of many clinically approved rapid detection healthcare devices.