Smartphone and microfluidic systems in medical and food analysis

Point-of-care (POC) assays have emerged as powerful analytical tools combining several attractive characteristics such as simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and rapidness. Among them, assay portability can be further enhanced by coupling POC devices to smartphones as analytical detectors. Therefore, in this chapter we critically review and discuss interesting and important advances of smartphone-based sensing analytical platforms in the medical and food analysis fields. To monitor research trends, a scientometric study was performed using structured keywords in the Scopus database. The bibliometric analysis revealed that both fields are relatively young and especially in the case of food analysis, smartphone-based diagnostics remains predominantly in a proof-of-concept stage. In addition, certain POC assays such as lateral flow assays or paper-based assays are the most common assays hyphenated to smartphones with the aim to improve quantification capabilities, online result processing, and data communication. Nevertheless, certain bottlenecks currently inhibit smartphone diagnostics to fully express their analytical potential due to absence of clinical trials in the medical field or insufficient validation in food analysis. In addition, interphone result variation, especially in the case of optical detection, is another significant challenge that needs to be dealt with. In conclusion, a comprehensive overview on smartphone sensing is provided aiming to emphasize the merits and drawbacks of this constantly evolving technology.