The idea for a single finger-prick blood test seems really ideal for diagnostics, but bioengineers at Rice University have shown in a new study that it really isn’t that simple. After taking multiple simple tests, they observed that the samples weren’t identical, specifically with basic health measures like hemoglobin, white blood cell counts and platelet counts.
The study, which was published in The American Journal of Clinical Pathology, was led by Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the director of Rice 360°: Institute for Global Health Technologies. They found that when compared to the normal blood draw from a vein in the arm, they had to get six to nine blood drops for an accurate, consistent reading.
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