Anemia Diagnosis on a Simple Paper-based Assay

In developing countries, the maternal and neonatal mortality rate is often affected by prenatal period anemia, a preventable and ubiquitous impairment attributed due to low hemoglobin (Hgb) concentration. We report the development of a simple, frugal (~ 0.02 $ per test), rapid and high fidelity paper-based colorimetric microfluidic device for point-of-care (POC) detection of anemia. We validate our findings with 32 blood samples collected from different patients covering a wide spectrum of anemia and subsequently, compare with standard pathological results measured using a hematology analyzer. POC based Hgb estimates are correlated with the pathological gold standard estimates of Hgb levels (r = 0.909), and the POC test method yielded similar sensitivity and specificity for detecting mild anemia (n = 8) (<11 g/dl) (sensitivity: 87.5%, specificity: 100 %) and for severe anemia (n = 3) (<7 g/dl) (sensitivity: 100 %, specificity: 100 %). The estimated Hgb levels are, within 1.5 g/dl from the pathological estimate, for 91 % of the blood samples. Results demonstrate the elevated efficacy and viability of this POC colorimetric diagnostic test, in comparison to the state-of-the-art complex and expensive diagnostic tests for anemia detection.