AFP Serum Rapid Test (Cassette)

Introduction The most common biomarker for HCC is serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). AFP is used for screening and diagnosing HCC, and also, it is used for predicting prognosis and monitoring the response to treatment. Discussion AFP secretion is associated with poor tumor histologic grade and aggressive tumor biological behavior. The risk of dropout on the waiting list for liver transplantation and the risk of tumor recurrence after liver transplantation are associated with high AFP serum levels. Therefore, using AFP levels for selecting patients to include on the liver transplantation waiting lists is critical. It is also known that a low AFP serum level before liver transplantation has limited informative value, but high AFP levels prior to liver transplantation indicate a higher risk for HCC recurrence. Conclusion AFP's performance as a screening, diagnostic, and prognostic marker for HCC is not ideal, but it is the most frequently used biomarker in the management of HCC.

A portable surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) reader with multiplexed detection was developed using an integrated LFIA reaction column. The proposed LFIA reader was designed to simultaneously detect multiple samples or samples with multiple biomarkers. With the integrated LFIA reaction column, we achieved the specific detection of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) with a detection limit of 0.01 ng/mL, which was three orders of magnitude lower than that of the visual signal. We also investigated the uniformity of channels based on an eight-channel integrated LFIA reaction column. The relative standard deviation values of the SERS intensity of the eight-channel for measuring the AFP, CEA, and PSA antigens at 1323 cm(-1) were 13%, 4.8%, and 5%, respectively. We detected 45 clinical serum samples of the three antigens using the proposed portable SERS-based LFIA reader to further confirm its applicability to clinical samples. The SERS signals of the positive sera were higher than those of the negative sera and their thrice standard deviation. This result indicated the practicality of the developed integrated reaction column and the proposed portable and multiplexed Raman reader. This work provides a new high-sensitivity, multiplexed, and automated SERS-based LFIA detector for use in the point-of-care setting.