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Foldscope as a primary diagnostic tool for oral and urinary tract infections and its effectiveness in oral health education.

DIR@IMTECH: CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology

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Title Foldscope as a primary diagnostic tool for oral and urinary tract infections and its effectiveness in oral health education.
 
Creator Kaur, T
Dahiya, S
Satija, S H
Nawal, S J
Kshetrimayum, N
Ningthoujam, J
Chahal, A K
Rao, Alka
 
Subject QR Microbiology
 
Description Due to its speed, accuracy and cost-effectiveness, microscopy has become an integral part of clinical examination for disease diagnosis. However, modern microscopes are very costly and require skilled personnel for their operation and maintenance, and specimen processing and analysis is labour-intensive. Further, lack of such expensive diagnostic tools in remote areas is a serious concern. Affordable point-of-care diagnostic tools are the most useful for timely disease diagnosis and management. The Foldscope is an affordable origami-based microscopy device composed of a series of paper clippings, which, upon assembly, can hold a specimen slide for observation, and this specimen can be viewed via a mobile phone camera attached to it. The present study evaluated the use of the Foldscope in the clinical diagnosis of oral and urinary tract infections and evaluated its efficacy as a motivational tool for improving oral health among school children in India. We qualitatively compared the Foldscope to a clinical microscope by examining five different types of clinical samples. Of the different types of clinical samples, the Foldscope was effective in detecting infection in dental plaque samples and urine samples. Thus, we further analysed 31 dental plaque samples of patients aged 3-13 years and 25 urine samples of patients aged 11-62 years. We also evaluated the use of the Foldscope as an educational tool for motivating oral hygiene among 80 school children aged 12 years and found that students in the Foldscope intervention group had better measures of oral hygiene than did students in the non-intervention group. In summary, our study indicated that the Foldscope is useful in detecting urinary tract infections and kidney stones in urine samples and is a useful motivational tool for oral health education among school-aged children. Furthermore, it may also be useful in oral health monitoring in resource poor settings. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
 
Publisher Wiley
 
Date 2020-04-14
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Relation https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jmi.12896
http://crdd.osdd.net/open/2562/
 
Identifier Kaur, T and Dahiya, S and Satija, S H and Nawal, S J and Kshetrimayum, N and Ningthoujam, J and Chahal, A K and Rao, Alka (2020) Foldscope as a primary diagnostic tool for oral and urinary tract infections and its effectiveness in oral health education. Journal of microscopy. ISSN 1365-2818