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Open Access Letter Issue
Skin microbiome dysbiosis in Prototheca wickerhamii infection
hLife 2025, 3(8): 410-412
Published: 01 August 2025
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Open Access Review Issue
Recent Advancements in Microfluidic Biosensors for Clinical Applications
iLABMED 2025, 3(2): 130-140
Published: 10 March 2025
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Downloads:132

The combination of low‐consumption microfluidic chips and high‐sensitivity biosensors enables rapid and accurate detection of complex target analytes. This integrated system holds significant potential for applications in disease diagnosis, health monitoring, and treatment management. Advances in novel biomaterials have led to device integration into wearable and implantable systems for point‐of‐care testing. Here, we review recent advances in microfluidic biosensors for clinical applications in detecting nucleic acids, proteins, metabolites, pathogens, and cellular components. We outline the prospects of integrated devices based on microfluidic biosensors for the analysis of biofluids such as sweat and discuss the remaining challenges facing the clinical application of microfluidic biosensors.

Open Access Original Article Issue
Comparison of the Performances of the Accunome DXcellence and Cepheid GeneXpert Assays in Detecting Influenza A and B Viruses and Respiratory Syncytial Virus in Nasopharyngeal Swab
iLABMED 2025, 3(1): 14-20
Published: 19 February 2025
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Downloads:64
Background

Respiratory viruses, such as influenza A and B and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), pose a severe threat to public health. The precise identification and distinction of these viruses are crucial in clinical laboratories. Here, we comparatively evaluated the performance of the Accunome DXcellence assay and the Cepheid GeneXpert assay in the detection of influenza A and B and RSV in nasopharyngeal swab specimens.

Methods

Four hundred archived nasopharyngeal swab specimens collected for routine clinical analysis were tested in parallel with the Accunome DXcellence assay and Cepheid GeneXpert assay. RNA standards were serially diluted and tested with the Accunome DXcellence assay to calculate the limit of detection (LOD).

Results

The positive and negative percentage agreement between the Accunome DXcellence assay and the Cepheid GeneXpert assay was as follows: 94.9% (74/78) and 100% (321/321), respectively, for influenza A; 98.1% (104/106) and 100% (293/293), respectively, for influenza B; and 100% (22/22) and 100% (377/377), respectively, for RSV. The LODs of the Accunome DXcellence assay for influenza A and B and RSV were 100, 87.5, and 62.5 copies/mL, respectively.

Conclusions

The performance of the Accunome DXcellence assay was similar to that of the Cepheid GeneXpert assay in the detection of influenza A, B, and RSV in nasopharyngeal swab specimens, indicating that the Accunome DXcellence assay is a useful diagnostic tool when these viruses are cocirculating.

Open Access Article Issue
Analytical and clinical validation of multiplex droplet digital PCR assay for detecting pathogenic fungal infection in lungs
Mycology 2024, 15(1): 110-119
Published: 29 December 2023
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Pulmonary invasive fungal infection in immunocompromised hosts is difficult to diagnose, and current tools for diagnosis or monitoring of response to antifungal treatments have inherent limitations. Droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) has emerged as a promising tool for pulmonary pathogen detection with high sensitivity. This study presents a novel ddPCR panel for rapid and sensitive identification of pulmonary fungal pathogens. First, a ddPCR method for detecting three fungal genera, including Pneumocystis, Aspergillus, and Cryptococcus, was established and evaluated. Then, the clinical validation performance of ddPCR was compared with that of qPCR using 170 specimens, and the 6 specimens with inconsistent results were further verified by metagenomics next-generation sequencing, which yielded results consistent with the ddPCR findings. Finally, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the efficiency of ddPCR. While the qPCR identified 16 (9.41%) cases of Aspergillus and 6 (3.53%) cases of Pneumocystis, ddPCR detected 20 (11.76%) Aspergillus cases and 8 (4.71%) Pneumocystis cases. The AUC for Aspergillus, Cryptococcus, and Pneumocystis was 0.974, 0.998, and 0.975, respectively. These findings demonstrated that the ddPCR assay is a highly sensitive method for identifying pathogens responsible for invasive fungal pulmonary infections, and is a promising tool for early diagnosis.

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