The population of the United States is aging. The first wave of the 78 million “Baby Boomers” is beginning to turn 60 years old. Coinciding with this aging of population is a rising concern regarding the public health, and a generally more educated patient in technology awareness. Some conditions, such as cancer, are most responsive to treatment if caught in the early stages. Cancer, for example, is best detected in the digestive tract. Given that cancerous growth can occur in as little as one to two years, it is essential to detect cancer or cancerous precursors at least annually, or preferably biannually. Physician and health care resources are currently already stretched and will fail if the current technology, process and procedure are not altered to suit the needs of the baby boomer market of the near future. Time-saving and simple solutions to diagnostics are needed.
The current population desires speedy testing and fast answers to their health questions. Many current testing and monitoring systems are limited by old technology and processes that takes days if not weeks for results. These test methods if not inconvenient and potentially embarrassing are at least in most cases intrinsically painful or risky to patients.
Thus, what is needed are diagnostic devices, services and processes that are simple, convenient, relatively inexpensive, comfortable, take less time, directly detect specific compounds or indicators to disease, and have more applications.