- Diagnostics
- 2 min read
The eyes have it: Your tears could foretell your ailments
The multi-marker biomarker kit that can be placed in a doctor's clinic will give the result in as little as 90 minutes. The kit could be a game-changer in diagnosis and treatment. Patients won't need to take a blood sample or even undergo scans exposing yourself to radiation, once the science around it develops.
The kit holds much promise. "It is going to start with its applications in eye diseases initially, but eventually it will find applications in all other kinds of diseases," Dr Arkasubhra Ghosh, director, GROW research laboratory, told STOI.
These kits can help predict, diagnose and manage diseases and disorders like ocular inflammation, dry eye, Keratoconus, uveitis, myopia, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. It can be a boon for babies born with retinopathy of prematurity, who are at risk of losing vision if the disease is not detected at a very early stage. The kit's applications could go beyond the borders of eye diseases in future. "We wish to expand the testing to Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and cancer," Dr Rohit Shetty, vice-chairman, Narayana Nethralaya, said.
So, in the days to come, your doctor may be able to tell the status of your health by simply taking a teardrop. The multi-marker biomarker kit that can be placed in a doctor's clinic will give the result in as little as 90 minutes. The kit could be a game-changer in diagnosis and treatment. You won't need to take a blood sample or even undergo scans exposing yourself to radiation, once the science around it develops. "You can envisage a future wherein a lot of scans can be avoided by just taking a teardrop," said Ghosh. "But it could take a few years before we get to that."
Biomarker signals
Before the disease manifests itself, tears could carry the biomarker signals. For example, an individual who develops diabetes at the age of 40 might have had hyperinsulinemia characterised by abnormally high levels of insulin in the blood for at least a decade. But he or she may not come to know about being diabetic, until clinically diagnosed so. "The tear-based biomarker tests will tell you whether or not you are susceptible to a disease long before you actually get it, allowing you to take preventive measures," said Ghosh.
GROW lab conceived, tested and developed the technology in India, in collaboration with BioTechne, a US-based company. "We are in the process of doing the regulatory filings right now. We have done beta test research on thousands of patient samples. In the next two years, the kits should be available all over the world," said Shetty.
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