Spicy Recipe for At-Home Diagnostics: Smart Salivary Sensors for Point-of-Care Diagnosis of Jaundice

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Analytical Chemistry
• Neonatology

Background:

• Neonatal jaundice is common, necessitating reliable monitoring.
• Current methods often require invasive blood sampling, posing challenges at the point-of-care (POC).
• Noninvasive diagnostic tools are crucial for infant health monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel, noninvasive sensor for bilirubin monitoring in neonatal saliva.
• To create an easy-to-fabricate and use assay for point-of-care (POC) applications.
• To validate the sensor's performance against established methods for jaundice diagnosis.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a curcumin-embedded paper assay for bilirubin detection.
• Utilizing bilirubin photoisomerization under blue light to restore quenched curcumin fluorescence.
• Development of an IoT-enabled, hand-held optoelectronic reader for signal quantification.
• Clinical validation using saliva samples from 18 jaundiced infants.

Main Results:

• The developed sensor demonstrated high selectivity for bilirubin in saliva.
• Bilirubin photoisomerization mechanism was confirmed as the basis for sensing.
• The IoT-enabled reader accurately measured fluorescence and color signals.
• Results showed good correlation with reference methods in both saliva and blood.

Conclusions:

• The smart salivary sensor is a promising tool for noninvasive bilirubin monitoring at the POC.
• It meets WHO's REASSURED criteria, facilitating jaundice and related disease diagnosis.
• The sensor enables smart, noninvasive diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring for bilirubin-related conditions.