Medical devices Inspector Gadget would love

Small, cheap and powerful diagnostic tools could change the way health care is provided.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. May 9, 2005.

Washington -- Patients with diabetes who test their glucose levels using credit card-size devices represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential of small and powerful medical diagnostics.

How about using sensor arrays, also called electronic noses because they are based loosely on the principles of the olfactory system, to "sniff" out lung cancer? Such arrays could move out of the lab soon.

Tiny and potent devices are already allowing physicians to monitor patients' chronic conditions without the necessity of an office visit and the more slight in size these devices get, the more muscle they seem to have.

"We are moving toward a time in the not-too-distant future when we really will be able to conduct thousands or hundred of thousands of tests in a small, inexpensive device," said David R. Walt, PhD, Robinson Professor of Chemistry at Tufts University, Medford, Mass., in an interview. These tools are already part of a trend toward bringing medical diagnostic services closer to the patient, he writes in the article "Miniature Analytical Methods for Medical Diagnostics" in the April 8 issue of Science.

And their use in the future promises a much different scenario for ordering tests and making diagnoses. While tests today are ordered one by one and are based on external criteria, such as a fever, rash or sore throat, "in the future we will be able to measure everything all of the time because it won't make any sense to measure one thing when you can measure all things for the same price," Dr. Walt said.