Point of Care (POC) testing in Clinical Trials: Emphasizing Patient Centricity

Points of Care Tests (POC) are the medical tests or diagnostics that are performed outside the clinical laboratory but near to the patient’s location. With the technological advances, POC are developed as compact device that gives accurate and timely results which are important in making early decisions on a disease progression or in some cases deployed to know the patient’s response to the therapies in chronic disease conditions. Certainly the POCs have evolved and has changed the healthcare paradigm towards more patient-centric.

Evolution of POCT

Earlier the POCs are used only for speedy diagnosis in the case of patients admitted in intensive care units and for simple home care tests like fingerstick glucose monitoring and pregnancy tests. Otherwise the sample were collected by the nurses and then submitted to the laboratories where they analyze large volumes of samples using automated machines. With the development of sensors, various analytes can be detected at point of care to diagnose and treat in the areas of cancer, stroke and cardiac abnormalities (1). In a study, chest pain patients using the cardiac troponin I POC was compared to the laboratory testing for their length of stay in the emergency department (until patients transferred to the floor). The result was that the bedside usage of troponin I POC by the nurses for the chest pain patients reduced their length of stay at the emergency department when compared to laboratory testing (2). With the increased prevalence of multiple chronic conditions and need for continuous, rapid diagnosis coupled with technological advancements in the POC development has impacted its use in clinical trials. Various POC devices having high accuracy and specificity have been developed to deploy in clinical trials emphasizing the patient-centric approach.