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Optics have always played a fundamental role in the development of biosensors for medical applications. In recent years, the demand from physicians has grown enormously for devices capable of measuring chemical and biochemical parameters of clinical interest in a reasonably short time and sufficiently compact, or better transportable, to be placed near the patient's bed, so as to allow the formulation of a rapid and reliable diagnosis and/or the choice of the most appropriate therapy, avoiding both the need for analysis of centralized laboratories and the waiting of a few hours and sometimes of a whole day to get the results.
Even if the physicians’ general attitude is to use non-invasive sensors both to minimise the risk and to avoid as much as possible any inconvenience for the patient, in some cases the need for continuous monitoring makes the use of invasive sensors unavoidable. In this context, optical fibres play a fundamental role thanks to their geometrical versatility, easy handling, high degree of miniaturisation as well as to their intrinsic safety for the patient, guaranteed by optical fibre dielectricity and by the low light power used for detection.
Sometimes the determination of a single parameter is sufficient, but it is important to emphasize that it is often necessary to monitor a panel of biomarkers associated with the onset and/or the development of a definite pathology. In this context, the optical biochip can play an essential role in the development of POCT equipment where the optical biochip can be defined as an array of optical probes on a substrate which uses specific chemical/biochemical reactions to provide an optical signal through which the detection of chemical/biochemical compounds can be achieved.
A view from the past to the future will be given with particular attention to the new trends.
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