Hologram Microscope to Facilitate Asthma Diagnosis in Children. A new hologram microscope has been developed which can be used to detect asthma, which is very common in children, before and faster.
Young children are more susceptible to disease than we are, and it is not always easy to diagnose the disease that occurs in them. Tests such as the standard lung function test used to detect asthma cannot be applied to children under a certain age. A new blood analyzer can deliver results in less than 2 hours.
This device, a kind of holographic microscope, was developed by the Fraunhofer Marine Biotechnology and Cell Technologies Research Institute of Germany. Pattern imaging and visualization company Raytrix also supported the research. The research was sponsored by the partly state-funded KillAsthma project.
Users start the test by dropping a drop of the patient’s blood into the microfluidic cartridge. White blood cells in this sample are added to a substance that triggers shortness of breath. After loading, the cartridge is attached to the microscope and the image of 3000 cells is magnified and displayed in three dimensions thanks to the integrated LED and CMOS sensors.
The device was trained using blood samples from persons diagnosed by conventional methods. Thus, the diagnosis can be made with the help of a computer. Although both healthy and sick cells react to the substance that triggers the disease, the response rate drops considerably when it comes to the cells of asthmatics.
After about 90 minutes of monitoring and analysis, the software can accurately diagnose whether the person has asthma. The potential uses of the newly developed technology are not limited to this.
Dr. Fraunhofer. Daniel Rapoport, said the methods can be used in the diagnosis of other diseases, he says. He states that immunity and chronic dyspnea, such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerated tissues and rheumatism can also be discovered. Detection of these diseases by traditional methods requires a long and difficult test process.
