POZ Community Forums
Meds, Mind, Body & Benefits => Research News & Studies => Topic started by: Rev. Moon on October 07, 2009, 09:50:34 pm
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This seems quite cool. If this is actually released it will become the gadget du jour for all of us pozzies (except of course those who still refuse to own a mobile phone). Perhaps they will also have one to deal with VL at another point?
Source: http://aidsmap.com/en/news/1CAC1009-8993-4AFE-9B06-88D7F1093690.asp
The fella who's developing this discusses it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH5H6uSQUFE
A US engineering professor says that a mobile phone attachment developed in his laboratory could be used to monitor CD4 counts within a few years, at a cost of less than $10 per device.
Aydogan Ozcan, assistant professor of electrical engineering at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, recently received a prestigious New Innovator Award from the US National Institutes of Health, granting him funding of $1.5 million over five years to pursue the invention.
Point-of-care tests are needed that can be used in resource-limited settings with a minimum of training, in order to determine whether patients are eligible for antiretroviral therapy.
Researchers are pursuing a variety of platforms to enable low-cost CD4 counts to be made more widely available.
In Ozcan's lab, a prototype mobile phone diagnostic unit has been constructed that uses LUCAS, an innovative lens-free, high-throughput imaging platform.
LUCAS (Lensless Ultra-wide-field Cell Monitoring Array platform based on Shadow imaging) first uses a light source to illuminate a sample of blood, saliva or other fluid. Then, with a sensor array, a "shadow image" — essentially a diffraction pattern — is obtained of the microparticles in the sample, such as red blood cells.
Because red blood cells and other microparticles have a distinct diffraction pattern, they can be identified and counted virtually instantaneously by LUCAS using a custom-developed "decision algorithm" that compares the captured shadow images to a library of images.
Data collected by LUCAS can then be sent to a hospital for analysis and diagnosis using the phone, or transferred by USB to a computer for transmission to a hospital.
The compact, lightweight and portable nature of LUCAS makes the potential impact of Ozcan's mobile lab very wide-reaching.
Currently, microscopes and advanced medical lab equipment, like flow cytometers, represent the standard for examining, identifying and counting cells. But they are bulky, cost tens of thousands of dollars and require trained technicians to operate.
"With LUCAS, we were able to simplify the imaging device. And because LUCAS does not require a lens, we were also able to increase the visual field to a few hundred times larger than the area that can be seen under a microscope," Ozcan said. "LUCAS really provides a capability that doesn't exist today."
According to Ozcan, the LUCAS platform can be produced rather inexpensively — parts cost less than $10 — and all one needs is a simple camera phone. In developed nations like the United States, point-of-care testing can potentially be done by LUCAS as well, reducing the cost and frequency of visits to the doctor's office and to labs.
Further work will be needed to refine the device, test its accuracy in the field and determine the manufacturing requirements before the device can be made available.
You can watch Aydogan Ozcan talking about his team’s invention in a YouTube video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH5H6uSQUFE).
Adapted from a University of California Los Angeles press release.
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k
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interesting, but what's the practical purpose of this for a pozzie? ???
I can understand how a doctor in a small town without good equipment or access to a lab, a doc in the field, or, depending on the speed of getting the results back to a doctor, a doc needing fast results might be interested.
But I've lived with nearly the same 245 tcells for a decade. Why would I need to spit on my phone, or worse yet have to prick myself like a diabetic for some blood, just to see that I still have close to 250 cd4s? And since cd4s tend to jump around a bit, how often would I even need to bother checking? Finding out once every 6 weeks to a couple of months seems to be enough already. :D I could become quite neurotic about my health checking my counts every 4 hrs or so. ::)
Oh, I do think that it's a cool gadget and will be very useful; but I think this is more of a physician's tool rather than something that average Joe or Jane Poz will ever need.
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interesting, but what's the practical purpose of this for a pozzie? ???
Personally, I would love to have such a tool for anecdotal (individual) research. For example, when I take supplements, if I could help narrow down the ones that really increase my CD4 counts and the ones that don't. Or measuring the effect of exercising, etc.
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Personally, I would love to have such a tool for anecdotal (individual) research. For example, when I take supplements, if I could help narrow down the ones that really increase my CD4 counts and the ones that don't. Or measuring the effect of exercising, etc.
Exactly. That is what I was thinking.
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Dayum!!! Billy Mays would have made millions with this gadget.
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Dayum!!! Billy Mays would have made millions with this gadget.
Darn, he woulda been a great spokesperson (shout-person?) for this trinket. "Got HIV?!!!!? Don't know where the heck your immune system is going??? Then poke your finger with the new ________ (insert name)!!? "
I think madbrain highlighted the ideal use for this. Nothing will probably ever replace our wonderful ID doctors and all the bloodsucking that's involved in getting our numbers.
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Yeah, just what we need here is more self-diagnosis.
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I just can't imagine the Verizon Wireless guy asking me if I can hear him now and then telling me my Cd4 count.
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For example, when I take supplements, if I could help narrow down the ones that really increase my CD4 counts and the ones that don't. Or measuring the effect of exercising, etc.
however, if none of those positive results (increased cd4s from either a supplement or exercising) lasts until your next regularly done lab work, how much is that temporary increase really worth the effort? or worth pricking yourself for the blood for the cell phone test? ;) :)
Having stayed on bactrim for nearly a decade when my tcell avg was about 167, I tried many things to boost my count (supplements, exercising, relaxation techniques, etc). You'd think I'd be happy not taking 32 pills a day like I did around 2000; but no, I still will try most anything to see if I can reduce the pill intake (which is down to 7 a day now). But there's just not much immune system difference between 150 cd4 and 175 cd4 really. ;D Both are still in that "danger zone" of <200. When the meds finally got me to undetectable (after being on the same regimen for 6 years that slowly but surely worked) that's when I finally saw an increase in cd4s, boosting the avg now (over a period of the last ten years) up to 250. (and after a year of staying over 225, I finally got to drop the bactrim! Woohoo!)
Sure the cell phone attachment could tell me that my cd4 count had risen +20 because of a supplement ;) or +100 because I was having a relaxing day lying out by the pool ;D, or even -200 because it was the day another partner died :o (hey! it's already happened twice so I can't rule out the possibility that it could happen again someday ::)) but if the next "offical" result from the lab that my doctor sees shows my cd4s are only +/- 10 from the last lab results, then I don't see that the cell phone results are really worth much more than maybe something to use to pick a lottery number. ;D
Now I could perhaps understand a once-monthly check on the viral load. However, speaking as one who went through 3 years of blips jumping up to as high 5000 and back down to undetectable on the same meds without any discernable reason for those blips, I still won't say that even that function would be something that would make the average pozzie really "need" this gadget.
The gadget could still potentially be a great way to cut health care costs though. My labs have been done in a hospital for all these years. This gadget could save the costs of the admission clerk, the lab intake clerk, the vampire nurse :D, along with the costs of all that paper, vials, pens, stickers and needles. But rather than personally buying one of these, it'd be even more cost effective to just pitch in and purchase one for my doc - then he could use it with all his patients. ;) Saving everyone involved a bunch of money - though probably putting some of that hospital staff out of work. ::) ;D
In the same vein as Philly, I just don't see where self-diagnosis in small time increments has much merit. CD4 counts can fluctuate too much for too many reasons to get really "valid" results in any short term testing. Whether your cd4 or vial load counts are up or down between hour to hour (even day to day) doesn't mean anything really, not compared to the trend of those counts month to month. ;)
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Hi,
however, if none of those positive results (increased cd4s from either a supplement or exercising) lasts until your next regularly done lab work, how much is that temporary increase really worth the effort? or worth pricking yourself for the blood for the cell phone test? ;) :)
Well, for some people the increases may not be all that temporary. Also there is a strong possibility that some products or foods have a beneficial influence on CD4 and others don't. If one is taking several of them, and they cancel each other, with labs only every 3 months, it may simply be impossible to narrow down the individual effect. I take 25 supplements at the moment, maybe 10 are really helping, 10 are neutral, and 5 are actually having a detrimental effect. Right now all I have to choose them is small studies, some of which are not overly convincing, and some of which are done in the lab only and not on people. While it would still not be conclusive, any data on one individual is better than no data in people at all. Maybe I could go on only one supplement for 1-2 weeks and see the pattern, and then rotate my 25 that way for a year, and then see which ones I think are really worth taking/not worth it/should be avoided. Of course it's more complex than that, once you put them back together the effects may change too ...
Having stayed on bactrim for nearly a decade when my tcell avg was about 167, I tried many things to boost my count (supplements, exercising, relaxation techniques, etc). You'd think I'd be happy not taking 32 pills a day like I did around 2000;
I'm taking more than that and the high count isn't bothering me so far. But I have seen some pretty good CD4 numbers and they maintain themselves. Maybe it has nothing to do with the supplements that I take whatsoever. If that's the case, I would like to know that as well and save some money and time filling up my bottles and taking them.
Sure the cell phone attachment could tell me that my cd4 count had risen +20 because of a supplement ;) or +100 because I was having a relaxing day lying out by the pool ;D, or even -200 because it was the day another partner died :o (hey! it's already happened twice so I can't rule out the possibility that it could happen again someday ::)) but if the next "offical" result from the lab that my doctor sees shows my cd4s are only +/- 10 from the last lab results, then I don't see that the cell phone results are really worth much more than maybe something to use to pick a lottery number. ;D
Well, I don't think the cell phone is going to tell you the causes, that's for you to try to figure out, it's only going to tell you the CD4 count ;)
Now I could perhaps understand a once-monthly check on the viral load. However, speaking as one who went through 3 years of blips jumping up to as high 5000 and back down to undetectable on the same meds without any discernable reason for those blips, I still won't say that even that function would be something that would make the average pozzie really "need" this gadget.
An instant VL check is different and I think it would have other interesting applications as well, eg. checking your VL before you have sex, etc. Even better if it works on a semen sample instead of a blood sample, since that's supposed to be different. Unfortunately the VL tests are way more complex than CD4 tests and I don't think that's coming to your cell phone anytime soon :-( !
The gadget could still potentially be a great way to cut health care costs though. My labs have been done in a hospital for all these years. This gadget could save the costs of the admission clerk, the lab intake clerk, the vampire nurse :D, along with the costs of all that paper, vials, pens, stickers and needles. But rather than personally buying one of these, it'd be even more cost effective to just pitch in and purchase one for my doc - then he could use it with all his patients. ;) Saving everyone involved a bunch of money - though probably putting some of that hospital staff out of work. ::) ;D
Yes, that would be nice, along with saving you the cost of the trip to the lab and associated CO2 emissions.
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Obsessive compulsives already monitored by doctors - rejoice! Another way to obsess.
I don't seem much application for this in countries with universal health care.
On the other hand, it seems like a handy tool where laboratories are scarce and costly. If a place can only identify so many people, and only treat so many people, it would help quickly identify those in need.
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I'm taking more than that and the high count isn't bothering me so far.
oh I meant HIV meds alone. ;) Besides bactrim and acyclovir, the only other med I ever take is acetaminophen (because I'm deadly allergic to aspirin). EVERYTHING else has always only been HIV meds. When I was taking 32 a day there were 12 gelcaps a day of kaletra, a handful of AZT, a couple great big old Videx tablets, etc. Meds were just downright nasty in the early 90s. :P Unfortunately there was also a lot of "over dosing" of meds in the early days of HIV treatment. ::)
Vitamins and supplements, like most meds, make me puke, so I take as absolutely few as possible when I'm forced to take anything else. ;)
Well, I don't think the cell phone is going to tell you the causes, that's for you to try to figure out, it's only going to tell you the CD4 count ;)
I was actually just trying to point out how flukey cd4 counts are. Those causes, like many others, really make a frequent (ie daily) tracking of cd4s not very reliable data. Maybe averaging out the daily tracking over a month would give you a more reliable number to actually see the trend.
I guess in a way I've been "spoiled" by how bad HIV has been to me. For 13 years, I was in for blood work and to see a doc at least every 6 weeks (if not every 4 weeks!). But I had viral loads over 800,000 to nearly 2 million, hospitalized for 5 days with PCP, hospitalized 4 days with pneumonia, and felt lucky to have cd4s average at 167 when they were <100 for the first 7 years. All-in-all it took over 10 years, 2 doctors, 9 different regimens with about a dozen different HIV meds, and 100s of hours of puking until I finally reached undetectable.
After all that, I'm not so concerned about whether my cd4s are up by +50 today or not because I went biking or took a multi-vitamin. LOL ;D It's actually been quite nice that my counts (cd4 and VL) have stablized in the past two years and these numbers aren't such a "life or death" concern. Now I only have to "worry" ::) about what the next numbers will be every couple of months or so. ;)
Could you imagine how devastating it would have been to have had my counts done on the day my partner died and seen that the stress, crying, grief and depression etc. had lowered my cd4s by -100 points or so? What realistic meaning could I have assigned to that number for my long-term HIV treatment plans? However, I did have blood work done 2 days after he was hospitalized (before we knew about the lymphoma or AIDS) and then about 2 months later (after he had been in the hospital for 60 days, come home for 9 days and passed away). The results? Both time my cd4s came back at the 255 that they had been for nearly a year. So a daily count really wouldn't have told me anything useful about my treatment; but the bi-monthly trend showed that my meds were still keeping things stable. (thank goodness! I had enough to worry and obsess about caring for my partner without worrying that I was dying too - that's how it was when my first long-term partner died in 94 and i was on azt every 4 hrs)
Also there is a strong possibility that some products or foods have a beneficial influence on CD4 and others don't. If one is taking several of them, and they cancel each other, with labs only every 3 months, it may simply be impossible to narrow down the individual effect....Maybe I could go on only one supplement for 1-2 weeks and see the pattern, and then rotate my 25 that way for a year, and then see which ones I think are really worth taking/not worth it/should be avoided. Of course it's more complex than that, once you put them back together the effects may change too ...
If you truly want to see which supplements are going to have the right effect of raising your cd4s etc, then you're going to have to take that long term approach and do your testing in more of a truly scientific method (and if you're not on death's door, then you have plenty of time to do this and to get it right ;) ).
Some medications/supplements can take up to 14 days to fully get up to level in your system. I would never make a medical judgement on any changes until after at least a month. I don't believe that testing for a supplement's change to your system after only a week or two would truly return an accurate reflection. I'm not saying that some wouldn't. I just think that you shouldn't rush the meds or your body. IMHO I would exercise or take a medication for a month before deciding whether that health plan was actually working or not. (i.e dieting for just a week isn't going to prove much as to whether it works or not)
I just can't see how taking 25 supplements all together is going to give you the real data that you're looking for. If you had this tester you would have to take the supplements one at a time for a month while testing, then several weeks to clear the supplement from you system, then moving on to the next one. Eventually you would have to work through the same process with combinations of those supplements. Otherwise the data from this cell phone tester wouldn't really be telling you as much as you imply that it could provide.
As you pointed out "If one is taking several of them, and they cancel each other, with labs only every 3 months, it may simply be impossible to narrow down the individual effect". Though I agree that 3 months is too long, I believe your statement holds even more true when your testing period is only 1-2 weeks with a variety of mix-n-match supplements. Whether you take 25 supplements for a few weeks or 3 months between testing, you'll never know which gave you a benefit and which did not.
Well, for some people the increases may not be all that temporary.
exactly! and that's the information that is provided by tests separated by months not by days or weeks. ;)
along with saving you the cost of the trip to the lab and associated CO2 emissions.
good points! I hadn't even thought about MY end of the savings. ;D Not to mention the time! Why that's more time I could spend reading or biking. :D Though it still troubles me that I could be putting some of those nice hospital staff out of a job. I guess that'll save their trip costs too. ROFL ;D
Thanks for the discussion and I hope you didn't get too offended by anything I've said. :) I'm just one that believes that good health (physical and mental) lies more in moderation (and a good attitude) than in obsession. I wouldn't doubt that a supplement or two might make me healthier. But if it's only going to make me healthier by some tiny measurement (by 10 t-cells or .5 lb), then I have to weight that gain against any detriment (will it cost me $100, will it make me puke, etc).
For 10 11.5 years now, <250 tcells have kept me out of the hospital and have gotten me into better health than I've been in the last 20 yrs, so having more cd4s doesn't neccesarily mean better health either. In the long run, too many variables (meds, stress, supplements, your own attitude of happiness or depression) all have an effect on a cd4 count, which really makes a daily tracking of it a very unreliable way to track your health and physical condition.
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it will become the gadget du jour for all of us pozzies (except of course those who still refuse to own a mobile phone).
not that I'm just trying to be contrary ;D but it also depends on income level.
Personally, speaking from my level of poverty, without the help of others (previous partner, previous roomie on disability, currently with Mom and her hubby collecting SSI themselves) I wouldn't be able to afford this cable connection or a cell phone. (I already lost my own internet connection and cell phone a long time ago, trying to pay for them making <$700 a month on SS disability. Heck what am I talking about. LOL :D Since those supplements that madbrain and I were discussing aren't covered by medicaid or medicare, I can't even afford to try any of them to see if they would help my cd4 count. ;D ). I count myself lucky though. I know 3 poz acquaintences so poor (living in an old hotel converted to one-room govt subsidized housing) that their only connection to the world is going to the library once a month to use the free internet connection (not to mention having access to the actual computers) in 30 mins stints.
Then speaking from my LTS situation, sometimes I wonder just how "realistic" our thoughts and conclusions are here. There are many more HIV+ people in the world without cell phones and the internet, struggling for food and shelter, than us lucky ones who chat here in these forums about hooking up gadgets to our cell phones. Any "conclusions" and "consensus" we reach probably does not accurately reflect the real opinions of ALL hiv infected people. Goodness, I remember just barely a decade ago when "having hiv" meant you probably already had AIDS and if you hadn't already lost everything and gotten onto disability (here in the US) then you soon would be taking that path. Thankfully, those demographics of HIV+ and homelessness, though still alarmingly not 0%, have gotten better.
Sorry that I've probably rambled on about this subject too much. :D (It's just who I am. I talk too much; but I really do try to make my comments and stories interesting - that's why there's all these personal anecdotes. :D ) It's just been rainy lately here in SC where I recently moved. I either have this to think about or how me and my Mom can scourge up some gas money. It seems that OH still hasn't closed out my medicaid and food stamp accounts, so I haven't been able to get any benefits here yet. If we can get enough $$ together, we can drive up to OH (just across the state line and not clear back up to Canton) and get $355 worth of groceries through my OH food stamp benefits. If not, then I haven't in Sept and Oct, and won't be able to until late November, to bring groceries into this house. Not having much food is probably why a cell phone gadget to prove the vitamin c raised my cd4 count (for just today ;) :D) by 10 seems, to me, like a silly device for a pozzie to consider getting or needing. But when this gadget does come out, I'll chip in to help buy one for the local (the only!) clinic in this whole county that treats HIV. ;) I'm sure it would serve a better use attached to that doctor's cell phone than mine. ;) ;D
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Hi,
oh I meant HIV meds alone. ;) Besides bactrim and acyclovir, the only other med I ever take is acetaminophen (because I'm deadly allergic to aspirin). EVERYTHING else has always only been HIV meds. When I was taking 32 a day there were 12 gelcaps a day of kaletra, a handful of AZT, a couple great big old Videx tablets, etc. Meds were just downright nasty in the early 90s. :P Unfortunately there was also a lot of "over dosing" of meds in the early days of HIV treatment. ::)
Condolences on your medication regimens. I'm still a virgin to HIV meds so far - knock on wood.
Vitamins and supplements, like most meds, make me puke, so I take as absolutely few as possible when I'm forced to take anything else. ;)
Some of them make me puke too, and they definitely make me puke if I take them on an empty stomach. But I have found that if I take them at the end of a proper meal, I'm totally fine, even if I'm swallowing 20 pills/gels at a time.
After all that, I'm not so concerned about whether my cd4s are up by +50 today or not because I went biking or took a multi-vitamin. LOL ;D It's actually been quite nice that my counts (cd4 and VL) have stablized in the past two years and these numbers aren't such a "life or death" concern. Now I only have to "worry" ::) about what the next numbers will be every couple of months or so. ;)
Of course, on a personal level, I understand the lack of concern on numbers, and I'm actually not all that concerned too, my CD4 bounce up and down like everybody else and we all know it's the trends that matter. But perhaps more frequent testing can help identify trends earlier. Also, identifying products that help or don't help may be useful to others and not just myself.
Could you imagine how devastating it would have been to have had my counts done on the day my partner died and seen that the stress, crying, grief and depression etc. had lowered my cd4s by -100 points or so? What realistic meaning could I have assigned to that number for my long-term HIV treatment plans?
I'm sorry about your partner, and I don't know the answer to that.
Some medications/supplements can take up to 14 days to fully get up to level in your system. I would never make a medical judgement on any changes until after at least a month. I don't believe that testing for a supplement's change to your system after only a week or two would truly return an accurate reflection.
I was just throwing the 2 weeks at a time out there. Perhaps 1 month at a time is preferable. But the idea is the same. I still don't get labs more often than 3 months at my doctor's office.
Thanks for the discussion and I hope you didn't get too offended by anything I've said. :)
No, I enjoyed this discussion.