Handheld device turns smartphone into diagnostic tool

A compact device that connects to a smartphone can detect HIV or syphilis in blood samples with high accuracy, researchers report in the Feb. 4 Science Translational Medicine.

The device, which costs about $34 to make, uses power from the smartphone’s audio jack to test drops of blood for telltale antibodies, rendering results in about 15 minutes. To test it in the field, researchers took finger-prick blood samples from 96 volunteers in Rwanda. Compared with results from “gold standard” lab tests, the new device correctly detected HIV infection 100 percent of the time, syphilis exposure 92 percent of the time and active syphilis infection 100 percent of the time.

The device also accurately ruled out HIV 87 percent of the time, syphilis exposure 92 percent of the time and active syphilis infection 79 percent of the time.