Point-of-care (POC) diagnostic tests are revolutionizing disease management through rapid, convenient, and user-friendly testing beyond conventional laboratory settings. In the field of chronic kidney disease (CKD), timely and accurate diagnosis is essential for early detection, disease monitoring, and risk assessment. While centralised laboratory systems remain the gold standard in the clinic, innovations in diagnostics have facilitated the emergence of portable, miniaturised, and ultra-sensitive systems designed to assess kidney functionality. This review systematically surveys commercially available and emerging diagnostic devices for CKD, including automated clinical analyzers, immunoassay platforms, urinalysis systems, biosensors, and other portable and POC technologies. The reviewed studies were compared based on analytical performance, detection range, sensitivity, specificity, sample requirement, analysis time, portability, and estimated cost. Across the surveyed diagnostic platforms, reported analytical performance varied substantially, with detection limits ranging from 180 to 0.099 ng.mL− 1 and recovery rate 92 to 100
Implant-associated infections remain a major challenge in dental implant therapy, frequently leading to implant failure, prolonged treatment, additional surgical interventions, and increased healthcare costs. Conventional antimicrobial strategies are limited by antimicrobial resistance, finite durability, and their inability to provide sustained antimicrobial activity while promoting optimal biological integration. Biomimetic coatings, designed to emulate natural biological compositions, structures, or functions, have emerged as promising surface modification strategies capable of enhancing osseointegration while conferring antimicrobial activity. To systematically evaluate and synthesize the available evidence regarding the antimicrobial effectiveness of biomimetic coatings applied to dental implant surfaces. A comprehensive literature search was conducted on 15 July 2025 using PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL). In vitro, in vivo, and clinical studies evaluating the antimicrobial performance of biomimetic coatings on dental implants were included. Study selection and data extraction followed PRISMA guidelines. Methodological quality and risk of bias were assessed using the Quality Assessment Tool for In Vitro Studies (QUIN) for in vitro investigations and the Systematic Review Centre for Laboratory Animal Experimentation (SYRCLE) Risk of Bias tool for animal studies. Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria, comprising predominantly in vitro investigations. The in vitro studies demonstrated moderate methodological quality, with recurrent limitations in sample size calculation, randomization, blinding, and reporting transparency. The animal studies exhibited a predominantly unclear risk of bias because of insufficient reporting across several methodological domains. Across the included studies, selected biomimetic coatings were associated with reductions in bacterial viability, metabolic activity, adhesion, surface colonization, or biofilm-related outcomes compared with control surfaces. However, these outcomes represented distinct biological endpoints, and the magnitude and consistency of the effects varied according to coating formulation, microorganism, experimental model, exposure period, and assessment method. Several studies also reported favorable cytocompatibility or osteogenic outcomes, although these findings were predominantly derived from short-term laboratory models. Biomimetic coatings show promising preclinical antimicrobial and osteogenic potential for dental implant applications. However, clinical effectiveness, long-term safety, coating stability, and resistance to mechanical wear and corrosion remain unestablished. The evidence is derived predominantly from heterogeneous in-vitro studies, supported by limited animal evidence and no clinical studies.
This study aimed to develop and evaluate a Tioconazole loaded nanosponges based hydrogel for enhanced topical delivery in the treatment of fungal infections. Tioconazole loaded nanosponges were made by emulsion solvent evaporation technique using ethyl cellulose and polyvinyl alcohol. The optimization of formulation variables influencing size of particles and entrapment efficiency was carried out by 32 factorial designs. The optimized nanosponges formulation was selected using the desirability function, considering both minimum particle size and maximum entrapment efficiency simultaneously. Although certain formulations exhibited smaller particle sizes, the optimized formulation (NS-8) provided the best overall balance between particle size (438.2 nm), entrapment efficiency (85
The cationic polysaccharide chitosan (CS) has received significant attention as a mucoadhesive and permeation enhancing polymer due to its strong interaction with mucin and ability to reversibly modulate tight junctions. However, its pH-dependent solubility and relatively low mucoadhesive strength limit its application as a mucoadhesive and permeation-enhancing polymer. These limitations can be overcome by modifying CS through carboxymethylation, quaternization, and thiolation, which enhance its solubility over a wide pH range, strengthen its interaction with mucin, and improve its ability to reversibly modulate tight junctions. The literature reports numerous studies on the mucoadhesive and permeation enhancing properties of CS and its derivatives. However, no comprehensive review summarizing these findings has been published to date. This article addresses this gap by reviewing CS and its derivatives as mucoadhesive and permeation enhancing polymer for mucosal drug delivery. This review critically discusses how CS molecular weight, pKa, degree of deacetylation, solubility, and viscosity influence its mucoadhesive and permeation enhancing properties. The mechanisms of mucoadhesion and permeation, along with their limitations, are described in detail. Furthermore, the need for chemical modification and the underlying mechanisms of mucoadhesion and permeation are clearly addressed. Finally, the roles of CS and its derivatives in mucosal drug delivery are critically analyzed, highlighting their current limitations and future prospects.
Shape memory alloys (SMAs) have emerged as transformative materials in biomedical engineering because of their shape memory effect, superelasticity, and biocompatibility. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of SMA research in biomedical engineering based on 351 Scopus-indexed articles published between 2011 and 2024, integrated with machine learning and transformer-based language models to identify research themes and forecast research trajectories. The field grew at an annual rate of 16.36
