Potential of Next-generation POCT in Infectious Disease Rapid Test

Real-time test results are necessary for early diagnosis and in determining treatment orientation in medical practice. Point of Care Testing (POCT) is a testing system that provides beneficial and helpful information for diagnosis and treatment through real-time testing at the bedside. Therefore, POCT has high utility value in the field of infectious diseases as a rapid test that provides, within the consultation hours, useful information for initial treatment.Infectious disease rapid test kits are commercially available for a wide variety of prophlogistic pathogen targets, including bacterial, viral, fungal, protozoal, and other disease agents. One of these kits is immunochromatography assay (ICA), a measuring method used as POCT that is easy to operate, wherein even physicians and nurses can conduct the test.Serodiagnostic method has been adjunctively used in medical practice in Japan for early clinical diagnosis of deep mycosis as a means to determine treatments. However, this method is complicated and is considered a full-scale clinical examination; therefore, it is not included in the category of POCT. Recently, Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) method has been tested as a POCT for diagnosis of fungal infection in the US. Development of a laboratory procedure using simple and highly accurate POCT for early diagnosis of deep mycosis is expected in the near future.