Multicorder: set to significantly enhance point-of-care diagnostic testing
Thanks to increased diagnostic accuracy, new standards are now achievable for point-of-care (POC) devices, improving public health and reducing the primary care burden.
As a low-cost, handheld analyser for POC disease screening and monitoring, the Multicorder uses microprocessor interrogation power and sensor microchip technology to perform multiple analyses using just a single sample droplet.
The severity of a disease is usually measured by quantifying a certain biomarker specific to the disease, found in bodily fluids. Through its parallel biomarker panel, the Multicorder can instead measure a combination of biomarkers that make a disease’s characteristic “fingerprint” and cross-evaluate results within a few minutes.
Biomarkers for prostate cancer
In the case of prostate cancer - the second largest cause of male cancer fatalities in the UK - a combined assay of four prostate cancer-related metabolites in a drop of human plasma can be completed in under two minutes.
An initial clinical study demonstrated the Multicorder had a sensitivity to prostate cancer of 94% and a false-positive rate of 30%, a significant reduction from the 70% rate attributed to the traditional prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test.
The Multicorder uses a regular electronic display (mobile phone/computer) and features disposable cartridges with a passive microfluidic system integrated onto a sensor microchip.
Five different sensing modalities have been demonstrated with the chips, namely:
- Colorimetric
- pH measurements
- Chemiluminescence
- Fluorescence
- Surface plasmon resonance sensing
Other Multicorder use cases are:
- Patient self-monitoring at home for diseases such as Haemophilia.
- Emergency first response vehicles where fast, accurate and portable results are needed for such things as ischemic episodes.
- Field hospitals and care homes where access to bulky and expensive equipment is not easily accessible.
The Multicorder has been developed, initially as part of an EPSRC grant, by scientists of the Microsystems Technology Group.
Next steps
The team are planning to clinically validate the platform on a larger population (especially for the Prostate Cancer work) and are also developing a 2nd generation of the platform which will integrate a larger number of sensors, yielding to the simultaneous measurement of up to 64 metabolites
To find out more, please contact: Prof David Cumming