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Celiac disease causes gluten intolerance, triggering inflammationof the small intestine after the sufferer consumes food containinggluten -- everything from bread and pasta to some drinks andprocessed meat products. Bloating, abdominal pain, nausea,constipation, diarrhea, anemia, headaches, mouth ulcers, skinproblems, depression, joint or bone pain, nerve problems andrecurrent miscarriages are among the symptoms. The only effectivetreatment is a gluten-free diet. The condition is thought to affect one in a hundred geneticallypredisposed individuals, but many sufferers may be unaware of thecauses of their health problems: the average delay from onset ofsymptoms to diagnosis is almost 12 years. And, if they seek medicalattention, there is a high risk of misdiagnosis: for every case ofCeliac disease that is correctly identified it is thought thatthere are seven more that are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. 'Part of the problem is a lack of awareness about the disease amongmedical professionals and the general public. In some countriesawareness is high, whereas in others many doctors have never heardof it,' explains Ciara O'Sullivan, a research professor in theNanobiotechnology & Bioanalysis Group at Universitat Rovira iVirgili in Spain. 'On the other hand, current testing proceduresare costly, invasive and complicated, and in some Europeancountries, particularly in Eastern Europe, and in developingcountries there simply aren't the facilities to test for it.' That is all set to change thanks to a groundbreaking new diagnosticand monitoring system that is soon to undergo clinical trials inSlovenia and should be available in hospitals and clinics acrossEurope and elsewhere within a few years. Developed in the CD-Medics* project by a consortium of 20 partnerswith the support of EUR 9.5 million in funding from the EuropeanCommission, the system is the result of a convergence of innovativetechnologies from several scientific disciplines includingmicrofluidics, nanotechnology and genetic testing. 'Our goal was to develop a quick, low-cost and highly accurate testfor Celiac disease that can be carried out at point-of-care, in thedoctor's clinic or even perhaps in the patient's home,' ProfO'Sullivan, who coordinated the project, explains. 'BeforeCD-Medics there was nothing like this available and while our focuswas on Celiac disease, the technology we developed can also be usedto diagnose and monitor a wide variety of other diseases --essentially any disorder that can be detected by looking for DNA orprotein markers.' Current procedures for testing for Celiac disease rely on a doctorperforming a biopsy to extract patient tissue that is then sent foranalysis, usually to an external specialised lab. The procedure isinvasive, usually takes several days to get results and each testcosts several hundred euro. A bleed-to-read solution The CD-Medics approach addresses all these issues. It requires onlyone drop of blood placed into a so-called lab-on-a-chip device,which looks like a credit card but incorporates several innovativecomponents: a micro-structured fluidic network allowing for aprecisely controlled flow of reagents, a specially adapted surfacefor capturing the biological components being looked for, and anelectrically driven sensor system to enable integrated andextremely fast detection. The disposable lab-on-a-chip is placed into a biomedical interfaceinstrument and analysis of the blood sample is carried out in amatter of minutes. Results can then be immediately output to thehospital information system and added to the patient's electronichealth record (EHR). 'For the first time, we have two microsystems of completelydifferent functionalities -- one for DNA typing and the other forthe detection of antibodies -- and we have designed thesemicrosystems to have a common interface with the instrument so thatonly one instrument with one slot is required for bothmicrosystems,' Prof O'Sullivan says. 'For diagnosing Celiacpatients two tests are necessary as DNA testing -- specifically forvariants of the HLA gene associated with the disease -- or testingfor gluten antibodies alone can return false positives. Testing forboth means the results are much more accurate.' Follow up tests to monitor the patient's response to treatment canbe carried out in the same way using only the microsystem to detectgluten antibodies. The project partners have patented the technology along withseveral other important microsystems innovations that went into theCD-Medics devices with a view to developing a commercial product inthe near future. Over the summer, the team will conduct trials with two to threehundred patients at University Medical Centre Maribor in Slovenia,comparing the results of Celiac tests using their system withanalysed tissue samples from biopsies. 'Slovenia has a very advanced electronic health record system andone of our goals was to ensure our tool interfaces with EHRs,' theCD-Medics coordinator says. 'Evidently, we also want to make sureit is as accurate and robust as possible.' The team then plan to present a prototype integrated Celiac diseasetesting solution at MEDICA 2012, the world's biggest medical tradefair in Düsseldorf, Germany, in November. They are alsocarrying out workshops for doctors and are involved in efforts toraise awareness about Celiac disease across Europe. 'We hope to have a product on the market within two years,' ProfO'Sullivan says. 'We are also looking to launch a follow-upproject, probably with public funding, to adapt and extend thesystem to test for and monitor many other types of diseases.' Prof O'Sullivan says that the same lab-on-a-chip technology couldbe used to create cheap, quick and accurate tests for a range ofother autoimmune disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis,spondylitis, thyroiditis, and even cancer: 'It's just a question ofchanging the DNA and the antibodies you are trying to detect.' The versatility of the technology is further enhanced by its lowcost. Compared to a normal biopsy and analysis for Celiac disease,which usually costs in the range of EUR 150-200, each CD-Medicstest is estimated to cost less than EUR 20 with the biomedicalinterface device a one-off expense of around EUR 6,000. 'The system is a complete bleed-to-read solution: cheap, quick,effective, easy for doctors to use and with big benefits forpatients compared to current procedures,' Prof O'Sullivan says. CD-Medics received research funding under the European Union'sSeventh Framework Programme (FP7). * 'Celiac Disease Management Monitoring and Diagnosis usingBiosensors and an Integrated Chip System'. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Revolving Shoe Rack , Side Hinged Doors, and more. For more , please visit Rotating Clothes Rack today!
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