Researchers say that new paper strip test determines blood type in a few seconds. Health experts develop a cheap, easy and efficient tool to find out Blood Groups. This tool could determine the blood groups of patients in remote settings. Hong Zhang at the Third Military Medical University says that Doctors can easily pinpoint whether a person is type AB, A, B or O.
According to the study published in the journal "Science Translational Medicine," the current methods for determining blood type involve taking a blood sample to a lab where a trained technician uses a centrifuge to separate and test the different blood parts.
The future of conventional tests
Hong says that the new Paper tool instantly determines our blood type, and doctors can decide whether a patient needs a blood transfusion or not. He believes that this new technique is beneficial for patients with the severe disorder. It is very difficult to determine blood type with conventional methods as the tests take 20 to 40 minutes. In contrast, a paper tool takes only 30 seconds to provide results, which is useful in emergency situations in which transfusion needs to be initiated as soon as possible. Unlike conventional methods, the new paper-based test classifies samples into the common ABO and Rh blood groups in less than 30 seconds.
Paper strip device to save more lives
Zhang believes that a paper device could save many lives as it instantly determines blood groups. There are three basic types of blood, A, B, and O. During transfusions or organ transplants; it is important to know about Rh factor of the cells. A typical method involves two steps: forward typing and backward typing.
In contrast, a paper strip device determines blood group in one step. For now, doctors cannot run multiple tests on the same sample. Hong aims to introduce a better paper tool by the end of the year. Zhang and his colleagues used the test to analyze 3,000 samples. He believes that the results are accurate, but the test requires some improvements.
