Sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 70% of the 35 million people living with HIV worldwide, obviously carries the heaviest burden of the HIV epidemic. Moreover, the region's poor health system occasioned by limited resources and inadequate skilled clinical personnel usually makes decentralization of HIV care difficult. Therefore, quality diagnostics that are easy to use, inexpensive, and amenabl...

In this study, we sought to develop strategies for improved endothelialization of a new polymer coating for vascular stents. Surface enhancement of the new poly-1,8-octanediol-co-citric acid (POC) polymer was achieved through conjugation of anti-CD34 antibody and incorporation of vascular endothelial growth factor and basic fibroblast growth factor-containing poly-lactic-co-glycolic acid microp...

Point of care (POC, or near patient) testing for measurement of the international normalized ratio (INR) has facilitated the devolution of service delivery from the traditional hospital outpatient setting. However it must be undertaken within the confines of safe practice involving quality control procedures. The evaluation of INR POC tests should be closely related to the clinical issues of ma...

The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is defining the Push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC) service where SIP is the protocol used to establish half-duplex media sessions across different participants, to send instant messages, etc. This document defines a SIP event package to support publication, subscription, and notification of additional capabilities required by the PoC service. This SIP event package ...

BACKGROUND General practitioners can safely exclude pulmonary embolism (PE) by using the Wells PE rule combined with D-dimer testing. OBJECTIVE To compare the accuracy of a strategy using the Wells rule combined with either a qualitative point-of-care (POC) D-dimer test performed in primary care or a quantitative laboratory-based D-dimer test. METHODS We used data from a prospective cohort ...

BACKGROUND Early infant HIV diagnosis (EID) coverage and uptake remains challenging. Point-of-care (POC) testing may improve access and turn-around-times, but, while several POC technologies are in development there are few data on their implementation in the field. METHODS We conducted an implementation study of the Alere q Detect POC system for EID at two public sector health facilities in ...

BACKGROUND The added value of using a point-of-care (POC) troponin test in primary care to rule out acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is debated because test sensitivity is inadequate early after symptom onset. This study investigates the potential cost-utility of diagnosing ACS by a general practitioner (GP) when a POC troponin test is available versus GP assessment only. METHODS A patient-level...

BACKGROUND Early diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is crucial to prevent short term delivery risks and long term effects such as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in the mother and infant. Diagnosing GDM in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) however, remains sub-optimal due to associated logistical and cost barriers for resource-constrained populations. A cost-effective strategy to scr...

The objective of this study is to assess whether a new biodegradable elastomer, poly(1,8-octanediol citrate) (POC), would be a suitable material to engineer elastomeric scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering. Porous POC scaffolds were prepared via the salt-leaching method and initially assessed for their ability to rapidly recover from compressive deformation (% recovery ratio). Controls co...

BACKGROUND The results obtained from various point-of-care (POC) test devices for estimating C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in a laboratory setting differ when compared to a laboratory reference test. We aimed to determine whether such differences meaningfully affect the accuracy and added diagnostic value in predicting radiographic pneumonia in adults presenting with acute cough in primary ca...