Multiplexed point-of-care testing (xPOCT) is a more complex form of point-of-care testing (POCT), or bedside testing. Point-of-care testing is designed to provide diagnostic tests at or near the time and place that the patient is admitted. POCT uses the concentrations of analytes to provide the user with information on the physiological state of the patient. An analyte is a substance, chemical or biological, that is being analyzed using a certain instrument. While point-of-care testing is the quantification of one analyte from one in vitro (e.g., blood, plasma or urine) sample, multiplexed point-of-care testing is the simultaneous on-site quantification of various analytes from a single sample.

Processing of one biological sample to yield multiple biomarker results allows for POCT testing to be done for patients who may have conditions that require the confirmation of multiple biomarkers and tests before diagnosis (e.g., many types of cancers). xPOCT has important emerging applications in resource-limited settings (e.g., in the developing countries, in doctor's practices, or at home by non experts) and has recently become more important for in vitro diagnostics.

Historically, medical testing has been a tedious, long, and expensive process in a clinical setting. It usually involves taking a large sample from the patient (e.g., urine, blood, saliva, tissue swab) and processing it in a separate laboratory, which takes hours or sometimes days to complete. In that time frame, the patient needs to be provided with care, which is not favorable to do without the desired information from the laboratory test. As far back as the 1950s, radioimmunoassays were first demonstrated for the sensitive detection of insulin and thyroxine levels in human plasma. In the 1990s, research that was being conducted in the microelectronics industry was applied to the design of immunoassays, and since then the applications for immunoassays have expanded.

There has been a movement towards quicker, more simplistic and cost effective technologies that require small amounts of biological substances to yield results. This movement has been dubbed as microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip technology and aims to bring the results of a test accurately, quickly, and conveniently back to the patient with low cost and complexity to ensure the best patient care. Multiplexed point-of-care testing aims to do all of these things, but with multiple biomarkers at once. Microfluidics refers to the study and control of very small amounts of liquids, and lab-on-a-chip is an electronic chip that is usually about 3 square millimeters that has the ability to perform various laboratory like capillary electrophoresis and PCR.

An ideal device for multiplexed point-of-care testing should offer high sensitivity and the capability to process one sample using multiple types of tests. It should be capable of testing various kinds of substances at the same time, including proteins, drugs, RNAs and cells. A high sensor performance that requires small samples, short turnaround times, low system complexity for non experts, and low cost are some characteristics of xPOCT technology. Especially for the resource-limited settings (developing countries, doctors offices, directly at home), equipment-free or smartphone-based devices are very advantageous.

xPOCT devices has to fulfill the following:

Multianalyte detection is mostly achieved through three different approaches, but the technology mainly aims to use a single or small set of biological samples to split or separate them to be read by various types of assays:

Other xPOCT devices use mass spectrometry (MS) to directly identify biomarkers. For example, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI)-MS is used to rapidly identify pathogens, but devices that use this technology tend to be bulky and difficult to use. For the signal readout, optical and electrochemical detection methods are mainly employed.