Automated Low-Cost Smartphone-Based Lateral Flow Saliva Test Reader for Drugs-of-Abuse Detection

Abstract

Lateral flow assay tests are nowadays becoming powerful, low-cost diagnostic tools. Obtaining a result is usually subject to visual interpretation of colored areas on the test by a human operator, introducing subjectivity and the possibility of errors in the extraction of the results. While automated test readers providing a result-consistent solution are widely available, they usually lack portability. In this paper, we present a smartphone-based automated reader for drug-of-abuse lateral flow assay tests, consisting of an inexpensive light box and a smartphone device. Test images captured with the smartphone camera are processed in the device using computer vision and machine learning techniques to perform automatic extraction of the results. A deep validation of the system has been carried out showing the high accuracy of the system. The proposed approach, applicable to any line-based or color-based lateral flow test in the market, effectively reduces the manufacturing costs of the reader and makes it portable and massively available while providing accurate, reliable results.

Enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) based on thread, paper, and fabric

“…The lateral flow assay (LFA) is a paper‐based platform for the detection and quantification of analytes in mixtures, where the sample is placed on a device and the results displayed within minutes. Their low costs and ease of production have yielded a myriad of tests to detect antigens and antibodies . A number of biological samples can be analyzed by use of LFAs including blood [a,b], urine (c), saliva (d), serum (e), plasma (f), and other fluids.…”

Rapid Daignostic Lateral Flow Strip Test Reader

“…In the literature, some cell phone based RDT reader platforms [1,16,17,18,19] and a Google Glass based RDT reader platform [20] [1,16,18]. The illumination platform provides good benefit to increase the image quality but it also increase the cost of reader system.…”

“…To mitigate these problems, nowadays automatic reading systems have been developed by researchers. Generally, quantity tests are realized by checking whether there are control and test lines and reported the result with cell phone based RDT readers [1,16,17]. Also, the smart phone or Google Glass based RDTs, which can be done quantity tests, report the amount of the sample that is tested [18][19][20].…”

“…Additionally, some physiological conditions such as pregnancy, blood glucose level, drugs of abuse, cholesterol, food poisoning are easily diagnosed by user themselves [1]. There are different types RDTs such as microfluidic Chip immunoassay [2], dipstick [3], pads [4], cassette test [5], and LFS [6][7][8].…”

Field evaluation of a smartphone-based electronic reader of rapid dual HIV and syphilis point-of-care immunoassays

“…An E-reader has been developed which can interpret 96-well antibiotic susceptibility microtitre plates with an accuracy in determining the minimum inhibitory concentrations and predicting antibiotic susceptibility profiles rivalling trained technicians 16. Beyond infectious diseases, other E-readers have been developed for interpretation of semiquantitative thyroid-stimulating hormone assays,17 for interpretation of drugs-of-abuse detection panels,18 and for measuring white and red blood cell counts and haemoglobin concentrations 19. All of those studies have reported comparable performance with standard reference testing.…”