Review—Enzymatic Strips for Detection of Serum Total Cholesterol with Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) Devices: Current Status and Future Prospect

Redundant cholesterol in human blood can cause severe health problems such as heart disease, coronary artery disease, arteriosclerosis, hypertension, cerebral thrombosis, etc Simple and fast cholesterol determination in blood is essential and benefit for early diagnosis. However, the abnormal level of cholesterol requires long-term and sensitive monitoring, which can be time-consuming and laborious for the patients to go to the hospital for the medical examination. To address this issue, the enzymatic strip detection may provide an optimal approach. Combing with the advantages of point-of-care testing (POCT), enzymatic strip detection of serum total cholesterol is continuously being widely used. This review summarizes the research on enzymatic strip detection of serum total cholesterol for POCT by colorimetric and electrochemical method, which may guide further research. It comprises the advantages of POCT, necessity of cholesterol testing, current status using colorimetric and electrochemical method, challenges and future prospect. Considering the current social demand and production issues, the colorimetric method is more likely to achieve mass production. Above all, the enzymatic strip detection of serum total cholesterol for POCT presents promising prospects for the fast cholesterol monitoring and will be further developed after those issues being addressed.