Capillary Microfluidics for Monitoring Medication Adherence

Abstract

Medication adherence is a medical and societal issue worldwide, with approximately half of patients failing to adhere to prescribed treatments. The goal of this Minireview is to examine how recent work on microfluidics for point‐of‐care diagnostics may be used to enhance adherence to medication. It specifically focuses on capillary microfluidics since these devices are self‐powered, easy to use, and well established for diagnostics and drug monitoring. Considering that an improvement in medication adherence can have a much larger effect than the development of new medical treatments, it is long overdue for the research communities working in chemistry, biology, pharmacology, and material sciences to consider developing technologies to enhance medication adherence. For these reasons, this Minireview is not meant to be exhaustive but rather to provide a quick starting point for researchers interested in joining this complex but intriguing and exciting field of research.

Recent advances and challenges of biosensing in point-of-care molecular diagnosis

“…Capillary platforms can be applied to the satisfaction of POCT applications by providing with multiplex capability, small time and money cost, simple operation, and portable deployment. They can easily be stacked or connected in tandem for devices with separate functions for filtration, reagent addition, and multiple tests in distinct areas [156 ] . For instance, a capillary system combined with LAMP was also devised by Xu et al as illustrated in Fig.…”

Pumpless deterministic lateral displacement separation using a paper capillary wick

“…[1][2][3] This has resulted in evolution of pumpless microfluidics. [4][5][6][7][8] They are not pumpfree, but rather rely on passive pumping techniques that are often integrated into the device. The most well-known passive fluid driving approaches 9 are gravity-driven, [10][11][12][13] capillary phenomenon, [14][15][16][17][18][19] and surface tension.…”

The sequestration mechanism as a generalizable approach to improve the sensitivity of biosensors and bioassays

“…39,40 Given the ubiquity with which nature uses the abovedescribed mechanisms to "ne-tune" the binding properties of naturally occurring receptors, we have argued that these mechanisms might also be of value in improving the measurement precision of articial biosensors. [41][42][43] Specically, we have made the case that steepening concentration/ occupancy curves can enhance the precision of biomoleculebased measurements. Such steepening would likewise benet scenarios, such as HIV status, and pregnancy, in which a qualitative, "yes/no" answer is sufficient.…”