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Can this blood-drawing and testing robot replace professionals?

05-May-2020

Key points from article :

First clinical trial of an automated blood-drawing and testing device.

Designed to prevent stressful multiple blood-draw attempts, bruising, and other injuries.

Includes a module that can analyse the sample using lab-on-a-chip microfluidics.

This could mean patients have shorter waits for diagnostic results in the future.

Phlebotomists fail to draw blood in 27% of patients without visible veins.

And in 40% of patients without palpable veins and 60% of emaciated patients.

Computer identifies target vein using infrared, then an ultrasound camera gives finer imaging.

Inspired from device developed for military, used near-infrared light to visualise vein.

Team have developed two devices, one at full scale and one in miniature.

Full-size device performed comparably or exceeding clinical standards 87% of the time.

Tested on 31 volunteers, larger-scale trials with several hundred participants underway.

Prototype created by Rutgers University’s Martin Yarmush, published in Technology.

Larger-scale clinical trials now in the works for a side-by-side comparison

Mentioned in this article:

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Martin Yarmush

American scientist

Rutgers University

Public research university.

Technology the Journal

Journal focused on the structure and function of the underlying science