A review on human body fluids for the diagnosis of viral infections: scope for rapid detection of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The unprecedented outbreaks of corona virus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) have highlighted the necessity of readily available, reliable, precise, and faster techniques for its detection. Nasopharyngeal swab has been the gold standard for the diagnosis of COVID-19. However, it is not an ideal screening procedure for massive screening as it implicates the patient’s stay in the hospital or at home until diagnosis, thus causing crowding of the specimen at the diagnostic centers. Present study deal with the exploration of potential application of different body fluids using certain highly objective techniques (Optical and e-Nose) for faster detection of molecular markers thereby diagnosing viral infections.

Areas covered: This report presents an evaluation of different body fluids, and their advantages for the rapid detection of COVID-19, coupled with highly sensitive optical techniques for the detection of molecular biomarkers.

Expert opinion: Tears, saliva, and breath samples can provide valuable information about viral infections. Our brief review strongly recommends the application of saliva/tears and exhaled breath as clinical samples using technics such as high-performance liquid chromatography-laser-induced fluorescence, photoacoustic spectroscopy, and e-Nose, respectively, for the fast diagnosis of viral infections.

KEYWORDS:

• Body Fluids
• photonics
• HPLC-LIF
• photo-acoustic Spectroscopy
• COVID-19

Article highlights

• Clinical evaluation of body fluids and cytology samples for disease diagnosis and prognosis is of pivotal importance in the current life-threatening scenario created by COVID-19 pandemic.

• Biosafety guidelines for collection, transportation, and storage of body fluid samples have to be followed by health professionals in accordance with WHO guidelines.

• Since saliva and tears are the possible routes for transmission of viral infection, identification, and detection of biomarkers in these samples can be highly reliable for early diagnosis.

• Breath biomarker-based diagnosis is getting importance due to its non-invasive nature.

• Optical techniques are gaining extreme importance over several analytical approaches, since these techniques are relatively faster, sensitive, and highly objective to adapt for semi- or non-invasive medical diagnostics.

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to acknowledge DST, DST-FIST, VGST, Govt. of Karnataka, for various facilities extended for the studies discussed in this paper. Sphurti S Adigal and Nidheesh V R are thankful to Dr. TMA Pai, Ph.D. fellowship obtained from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, to each one of them to carry out this work. Authors are also thankful to Dr. V.B. Kartha, former head of the centre for his expert suggestions during the preparation of this manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.