What is POCT molecular diagnosis?
From the gene level, the detection object is nucleic acid, which has high sensitivity and accuracy. Virus can be identified at the initial stage of infection or gene mutation can be confirmed in advance. Molecular diagnosis based on PCR is often the "gold standard" for the diagnosis of infectious diseases in hospitals.
POCT, which is characterized by the application of molecular diagnostic methods, is likely to become the mainstream of in vitro diagnostic industry in the future because of its advantages of high sensitivity, high accuracy, portability, simple operation, less detection time, no requirement for environment and low cost.
The epidemic situation is fierce, spreading fast and spreading widely. In the face of fighting the epidemic, time is life, so we need to speed up the diagnosis!
Conventional real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR methods need strict operation skills and professional training, and must be carried out in PCR certified laboratories. COVID-19 nucleic acid detection generally takes 30 minutes to 120 minutes according to different nucleic acid extraction methods, and the nucleic acid amplification time is less than 2 hours. In addition, an experiment usually takes 4-5 hours, and if the circulation time of samples in the hospital is considered, it usually takes 6-8 hours from patient sampling to getting the test results.
The vast majority of primary hospital laboratories do not have the above-mentioned professionals and equipment, and only send samples to qualified laboratories. In most cases, qualified laboratories can't finish their own hospital samples, so the difficulty of nucleic acid diagnosis can be imagined.
It is definitely too late to build a laboratory now, and the difficulty of initial screening and diagnosis can only be solved by POCT. Including traditional immune POCT and molecular POCT.
At the traditional POCT end, patients with inflammatory infection and viral infection can be distinguished by C-reactive protein, procalcitonin and D-dimer, and the initial screening can be completed.
The instrument used in POCT is a new product form of in vitro diagnosis, that is, the items to be detected are integrated into a portable instrument, "the samples enter and the results come out". So that doctors can quickly obtain the test results and improve the treatment process. Usually, the disease examination is carried out in the central laboratory of the hospital. Although the inspection cost of a single project is low, the inspection results can not be obtained in time, targeted treatment can not be started immediately, and it is also limited by the inspection location. The appearance of POCT nucleic acid detection can be said to fill the gap of rapid diagnosis.
Today, the scope of POCT inspection is expanding, and the inspection of some projects has shifted from obtaining qualitative results to obtaining quantitative parameters. The accuracy and reliability of the results are not only comparable to that of the central laboratory, but also can be operated by non-professionals Therefore, it has made great progress and occupied a place in the field of laboratory medicine today.