Researchers developed a diagnostic device, composed of a reader and disposable lateral flow card, to measure total serum bilirubin in newborn children at risk of jaundice, and report that the device was highly similar in performance to a laboratory standard when tested on 94 blood samples with bilirubin concentrations ranging between 1.1 and 23 mg/dL that were taken from newborn children at risk of jaundice in Malawi, suggesting that the device might serve as a prototype of a low-cost, easy-to-use, point-of-care diagnostic device for neonatal jaundice in resource-limited settings.
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Article #17-14020: "Point-of-care device to diagnose and monitor neonatal jaundice in low-resource settings," by Rebecca R. Richards-Kortum et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Rebecca R. Richards-Kortum, Rice University, Houston, TX; tel: 713-348-3823; e-mail: < rkortum@rice.edu >
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences