IIT Kharagpur Hemoglobin Test- Affordable & Minimally Invasive
India is a country where affordability deters access to healthcare. There is an urgent need to develop high-quality, easy-to-use, scalable and affordable technologies that solve problems in screening, diagnostics, and therapy.
Scientists at IIT Kharagpur recently pitched one such solution.
According to the 2018 Global Nutrition Report, almost 50% of pregnant women were anemic. Anemia precipitates organ damage by lowering the amount of oxygen in the body and contributes to multiple problems during pregnancy. These then culminate in pre- and post-natal maternal mortality.
Suman Chakraborty, a member of the department of
mechanical engineering at IIT Kharagpur and team have attempted to build a low-cost, minimally invasive and portable device to measure hemoglobin levels.Through a series of chemical reactions, hemoglobin helps break down hydrogen peroxide to produce oxygen.
IIT Kharagpur Hemoglobin Test- The Principle Behind the New Device
According to its design, the device triggers just these reasons to produce oxygen. This is made to react with o-toluidine to produce a bluish-green substance. This substance absorbs light proportionally to its amount. Therefore more the substance, the darker it will appear. Using this indicator, its inventor says the device can estimate the amount of hemoglobin in the blood.
While this technique is not new to biochemistry, the device’s makers say its fabrication is novel. They have printed micro-channels on a filter paper using a simple office printer. This guides the collected blood sample to pre-designated reaction chambers containing the reagents.
The device is expected to be able to interpret data from the bluish-green substance through an app that can be installed on a smartphone. More expensive conventional techniques can be avoided.
According to the researchers, the device can measure hemoglobin in less than Rs 1! It also requires a small amount of blood and is also less invasive. It addresses the issue of both cost and convenience.
Amitabha Ghosh former director of IIT Kharagpur said that this device would be affordable to the masses. Though he noted that the device’s accuracy has room for improvement.
He further said his team is currently working with different firms to introduce the device among patients.
IIT Kharagpur Hemoglobin Test- Action Plan
Mr. Chakraborty said that his team has conducted validation studies in three distinct stages.
In the First Stage, the researches used Drabkin’s method. Blood samples were taken from the in-house hospital in IIT Kharagpur and correlated to measured hemoglobin levels to the gold-standard test used in pathological laboratories.
The second study was conducted at the Salboni Superspeciality Hospital in West Midnapore district of West Bengal. The team said the results proved that the device worked in uncontrolled temperature and humidity conditions.
For the Third stage collaborated with the Foundation for Innovations in Health (FIH), a non-profit organization in Kolkata. This was carried out to assess the feasibility of using the device in extreme point-of-care.
FIH has established an e-health delivery model in multiple health kiosks in rural Bengal. Satadal Saha, Vice-president of FIH said that Prof Chakraborty has provided FIH with the technological expertise for affordable healthcare. Saha added that the third study helped researchers identify “need and boundary conditions of the rural environment”. Based on the data obtained they researchers are improving the device.
Royina Saha, a program officer at FIH said, high cost, irregular electricity, and complex consumable requirements deter the large-scale acceptance of the gold-standard test for on-field use.
IIT Kharagpur Hemoglobin Test- What’s Next?
The results from these studies are being compiled for approval from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), post which it is expected to become available for commercial use. The group of researchers has also applied for a patent.
It also remains to be seen how human factors like end-user trust, social influence, acceptance in the healthcare fraternity, and behavioral intention will impact the device’s large-scale use.
