Key result
Three of four portable cholesterol sensors prove highly erroneous compared to clinical laboratory standards.
Why the study?
Portable medical sensors provide vital patient information for telehealth in rural communities, but erroneous data could mislead remote doctors and cause health threats, requiring identification of accurate and affordable sensors.
Are commonly used portable cholesterol sensors accurate enough for telehealth services compared to a laboratory gold standard?
Observational
Are commonly used portable cholesterol sensors accurate enough for telehealth services compared to a laboratory gold standard?
Most commonly used portable cholesterol sensors in developing Asian countries are highly inaccurate and unsuitable for primary healthcare telehealth services.
Caution advised with unvalidated portable cholesterol sensors in telehealth; leaves open need for rigorous validation studies before routine use.
Portable medical sensors play an important role in healthcare services, especially in rural communities. Many telehealth systems use these devices for providing patients' vital information from a distance to remote doctors. Erroneous data will not only mislead the remote doctor for correct diagnosis but it will cause health threats to these unreached community people. Therefore, it is very important to identify good sensors with an acceptable level of accuracy but within the affordable price of the available sensors in the market. This study aims to identify quality portable cholesterol sensors with high accuracy with the reference of the Japanese clinical pathology laboratory as a gold standard. We have considered cholesterol sensors that measure total cholesterol for this study that are commonly used in the developing countries of Asia. We found that out of four, three of them were very much erroneous and cannot be recommended even for primary healthcare.
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Islam et al. (2024) conducted an observational in Cholesterol measurement. Portable cholesterol sensors vs. Japanese clinical pathology laboratory standard was evaluated on Accuracy of total cholesterol measurement. Evaluation of four commonly used portable cholesterol sensors revealed that three were highly erroneous compared to a clinical laboratory gold standard and cannot be recommended for primary healthcare.
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