Point-of-care and self-testing for potassium: recent advances

Abstract

Potassium is an important bodily electrolyte which is kept within tight limits in health. Many medical conditions as well as commonly-used drugs either raise or lower blood potassium levels, which can be dangerous or even fatal. For at-risk patients, frequent monitoring of potassium can improve safety and lifestyle, but conventional venous blood draws are inconvenient, don't provide a timely result and may be inaccurate. This review summarises current solutions and recent developments in point-of-care and self-testing potassium measurement technologies, which include devices for measurement of potassium in venous blood, devices for home blood collection and remote measurement, devices for rapid home measurement of potassium, wearable sensors for potassium in interstitial fluid, in sweat, in urine, as well as non-invasive potassium detection. We discuss the practical and clinical applicability of these technologies and provide future outlooks.