Chemical sensors integrated with mobile phones for remote medical diagnostics: State-of-the-art and beyond

Human breath and sweat are sources of biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which can be sampled non-invasively providing medical information. Smartphones can be equipped with a variety of classical sensors (e.g. camera, audio, temperature/humidity, geomagnetic, proximity, barometer, accelerometer, GPS, gyroscope, etc.) but also with chemical sensors for gases and VOCs monitoring and then be used as personalized health monitoring devices. The goal of this paper is to highlight the latest research efforts towards the direction of transforming smartphones to revolutionary diagnostic medical tools, being able to detect and process chemical profiles related to vital signs but also with the potential to therapeutic monitoring.