Table 4.

Comparison between the current proposed NMR-based POCT with AI-aided technology and existing state-of-the-art technologies (e.g., high-field NMR⁵², electrophoresis⁵³, hplc⁵⁴, and PCR-based assay⁴⁵) which have been reported for clinical hemoglobinopathies.

	NMR-based POCT	High-field NMR	Electrophoresis	HPLC cation exchange	PCR-based assay
Information	Phenomic	Proteomic	Proteomic	Proteomic	Genomic
Mode of action	Water-protein interactions (time domain)	Chemical shift (frequency domain)	Electric field (protein charge)	Mass transfer	DNA amplification
Multi-dimensional	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
AI-assisted	Yes	No	No	No	No
Equipment size	Bench-top	Large	Bench-top	Large	Large
Equipment price	Cheap	Expensive	Cheap	Expensive	Expensive
Price per assay	Ultra cheap	Medium	Medium	Expensive	Expensive
Sample processing	Easy	Easy	Difficult	Difficult	Difficult
Time to results	Minute	Hours	Hours	Hours	Hours
POCT	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
Non-destructive	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Functional test	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
References	This work	Levitt et. al.,	Kutlar et. al.,	Kehra et. al.,	Kutlar et. al.,

The price per assay for NMR-based POCT refers to a single microcapillary tube (<$0.10). In addition, the proposed method is label-free and therefore no chemical treatment is required.

HPLC high-performance liquid chromatography.