Emerging point-of-care technologies for sickle cell disease diagnostics

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a serious and life-threatening disorder. SCD is considered a public health issue affecting 25% of the population in Central and West Africa. Some countries in this region lack the necessary resources to treat and diagnose many diseases including SCD. Current methods for screening SCD are time-consuming and require expensive laboratory equipment and facilities. This leads to an inability to diagnose the disease early. Lack of early diagnosis and treatment can lead to childhood death. The number of childhood deaths is significantly higher in developing countries. There is unmet need to develop novel methods for diagnosing and monitoring SCD that are both cost effective and portable. The point-of-care (POC) platforms provide the cost effectiveness and portability that allows for the potential diagnosis of millions of people in countries with few resources. In this review, we summarized the important features, benefits, limitations and potential of POC devices. We conducted a comprehensive literature analysis to compare the sensitivity and specificity of several POC diagnostics developed for SCD with a focus on their usages in resource limited settings.