Albumin testing in urine using a smart-phone

TLDR

The study presents a smartphone‑based Albumin Tester that images and analyzes fluorescent assays in disposable tubes to detect albumin in urine. The lightweight attachment (≈148 g) mounts on the phone camera, uses a battery‑powered laser diode to excite the sample and control tubes, captures perpendicular fluorescence with an external lens, and processes images in under one second via an Android app to quantify albumin. The platform achieves a detection limit of 5–10 µg mL⁻¹ in buffer and urine, exceeding clinical sensitivity, and could aid early kidney disease diagnosis or monitoring of chronic patients with diabetes, hypertension, or cardiovascular disease.

Abstract

We demonstrate a digital sensing platform, termed Albumin Tester, running on a smart-phone that images and automatically analyses fluorescent assays confined within disposable test tubes for sensitive and specific detection of albumin in urine. This light-weight and compact Albumin Tester attachment, weighing approximately 148 grams, is mechanically installed on the existing camera unit of a smart-phone, where test and control tubes are inserted from the side and are excited by a battery powered laser diode. This excitation beam, after probing the sample of interest located within the test tube, interacts with the control tube, and the resulting fluorescent emission is collected perpendicular to the direction of the excitation, where the cellphone camera captures the images of the fluorescent tubes through the use of an external plastic lens that is inserted between the sample and the camera lens. The acquired fluorescent images of the sample and control tubes are digitally processed within one second through an Android application running on the same cellphone for quantification of albumin concentration in the urine specimen of interest. Using a simple sample preparation approach which takes ∼5 min per test (including the incubation time), we experimentally confirmed the detection limit of our sensing platform as 5–10 μg mL−1 (which is more than 3 times lower than the clinically accepted normal range) in buffer as well as urine samples. This automated albumin testing tool running on a smart-phone could be useful for early diagnosis of kidney disease or for monitoring of chronic patients, especially those suffering from diabetes, hypertension, and/or cardiovascular diseases.