Point‐of‐Care Testing in Sickle Cell Disease

Abstract

Sickle cell disease is one of the most common inherited blood disorders. Universal screening and central laboratory diagnostics have improved early identification of affected individuals and helped to reduce childhood mortality in high‐resource countries. Additional methods of centralized diagnostics have also been developed in some low resource areas in partnership with private companies, local governments and academic US‐based institutions. However, these techniques require expansive infrastructure and government partnership for success. Thus, many individuals living in low‐resource settings are often not diagnosed until late childhood when they present with clinical symptoms. In addition, confirmation of disease in affected individuals in the urgent care setting remains limited in both high‐ and low‐resource areas due to the use of batched testing methods. All of the current diagnostic methods rely on advanced laboratory systems and are often prohibitively expensive and time‐consuming. To address this need and improve the capacity for timely diagnosis, novel methods for point‐of‐care testing for sickle cell disease are currently in process.