Competitive usb-powered hand-held potentiostat for poc applications : An hrp detection case

Funding: This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias of Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (AEI/FEDER, UE), through projects TEC2016-78284-C3-3-R and DTS17/00145. EB is funded by a Miguel Servet II contract from ISCIII-FEDER (CPII18/00025). GR is supported by a VHIR predoctoral fellowship funded by Amics del VHIR. Diagnostic Nanotools is a Consolidated Group supported by the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca of Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant 2017 SGR 240).Considerable efforts are made to develop Point-of-Care (POC) diagnostic tests. POC devices have the potential to match or surpass conventional systems regarding time, accuracy, and cost, and they are significantly easier to operate by or close to the patient. This strongly depends on the availability of miniaturized measurement equipment able to provide a fast and sensitive response. This paper presents a low-cost, portable, miniaturized USB-powered potentiostat for electrochemical analysis, which has been designed, fabricated, characterized, and tested against three forms of high-cost commercial equipment. The portable platform has a final size of 10.5 × 5.8 × 2.5 cm, a weight of 41 g, and an approximate manufacturing cost o

‘Plug-and-Power’ Point-of-Care diagnostics: A novel approach for self-powered electronic reader-based portable analytical devices

This paper presents an innovative approach in the portable Point-of-Care diagnostics field, the Plug-and-Power concept. In this new disposable sensor and plug-and-play reader paradigm, the energy required to perform a measurement is always available within the disposable test component. The reader unit contains all the required electronic modules to run the test, process data and display the result, but does not include any battery or power source. Instead, the disposable part acts as both the sensor and the power source. Additionally, this approach provides environmental benefits related to battery usage and disposal, as the paper-based power source has non-toxic redox chemistry that makes it eco-friendly and safe to follow the same waste stream as disposable test strips. The feasibility of this Plug-and-Power approach is demonstrated in this work with the development of a self-powered portable glucometer consisting of two parts: a test strip including a paper-based power source and a paper-based biofuel cell as a glucose sensor; and an application-specific battery-less electronic reader designed to extract the energy from the test strip, process the signal provided and show the glucose concentration on a display. The device was tested with human serum samples with glucose concentrations between 5 and 30 mM, providing quantitative results in good agreement with commercial measuring instruments. The advantages of the present approach can be extended to any kind of biosensors measuring different analytes and biological matrices, and in this way, strengthen the goals of Point-of-Care diagnostics towards laboratory decentralization, personalized medicine and improving patient compliance

Evolution over Time of Ventilatory Management and Outcome of Patients with Neurologic Disease∗

OBJECTIVES: To describe the changes in ventilator management over time in patients with neurologic disease at ICU admission and to estimate factors associated with 28-day hospital mortality. DESIGN: Secondary analysis of three prospective, observational, multicenter studies. SETTING: Cohort studies conducted in 2004, 2010, and 2016. PATIENTS: Adult patients who received mechanical ventilation for more than 12 hours. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Among the 20,929 patients enrolled, we included 4,152 (20%) mechanically ventilated patients due to different neurologic diseases. Hemorrhagic stroke and brain trauma were the most common pathologies associated with the need for mechanical ventilation. Although volume-cycled ventilation remained the preferred ventilation mode, there was a significant (p < 0.001) increment in the use of pressure support ventilation. The proportion of patients receiving a protective lung ventilation strategy was increased over time: 47% in 2004, 63% in 2010, and 65% in 2016 (p < 0.001), as well as the duration of protective ventilation strategies: 406 days per 1,000 mechanical ventilation days in 2004, 523 days per 1,000 mechanical ventilation days in 2010, and 585 days per 1,000 mechanical ventilation days in 2016 (p < 0.001). There were no differences in the length of stay in the ICU, mortality in the ICU, and mortality in hospital from 2004 to 2016. Independent risk factors for 28-day mortality were age greater than 75 years, Simplified Acute Physiology Score II greater than 50, the occurrence of organ dysfunction within first 48 hours after brain injury, and specific neurologic diseases such as hemorrhagic stroke, ischemic stroke, and brain trauma. CONCLUSIONS: More lung-protective ventilatory strategies have been implemented over years in neurologic patients with no effect on pulmonary complications or on survival. We found several prognostic factors on mortality such as advanced age, the severity of the disease, organ dysfunctions, and the etiology of neurologic disease