SmartHEALTH: A multisensor platform for POC cancer diagnostics

In many diagnostic fields a massive trend towards bringing the diagnostic procedure closer to the patient in space and time can be observed. This so-called Point-of-Care diagnostics (POC) greatly benefits from recent advances in microfabrication technologies, namely in the field of polymer based microsystems [1]. This is the more important as there is a massive pressure in reducing cost in all aspects of the health-care market and diagnostics has traditionally been seen as a low-cost high-volume market which makes it difficult for new technologies to break into as they tend to have higher initial cost and a less mature fabrication technology. In this respect, developing a POC multisensor platform for the detection of various forms of cancer, namely breast, cervical and colorectal cancer, can offer a potential entry to the diagnostic market as only few conventional techniques exist for the early detection of these cancer forms which all have severe shortcomings either in the accuracy of the detection, the sensitivity of the test, the ease-of-use and last but not least the cost of these tests.