Advancing tuberculosis diagnosis in children and adults by developing point-of-care optical devices

There are around 10 million TB cases yearly, primarily impacting low and low- to middle income countries. Rapid and correct diagnosis, coupled with timely treatment for this curable disease in several thousand people, including children, will result in significant reductions in morbidity and mortality.

This, in turn, will lead to economic gains for individuals, families, and societies, contributing to sustainable improvements in health and poverty reduction.

This project will test a rapid, portable, cost-effective, and locally developed TB diagnostic device in Pakistan. The diagnostic tests will build on the recently demonstrated novel and indigenously developed optical TB diagnostic devices at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan, utilizing Raman spectroscopy to find TB signatures, and optical fibre cavity ring down spectroscopy to detect Lipoarabinomannan, a major structural surface component of all mycobacteria.  In collaboration with Gulab Devi Hospital, one of the sentinel sites for the provincial TB control program, we will collect various biological samples, including sputum, breath condensate, urine, stool, varied fluids, and fine needle aspirates. Culture and GeneXpert will be used as reference standards for diagnostic validation. No prior work has examined such diverse arrays of biological samples for TB diagnosis using these devices