Recent progress of flow-through optosensing in clinical and pharmaceutical analysis

The applications of flow-through optosensing in clinical and pharmaceutical analysis in the last decade are here reviewed. A classification of the flow methodologies employed (conventional flow injection analysis, multicommutated flow analysis and sequential injection analysis) is introduced and their principal characteristics explained. The fundamentals of flow-through optosensing together with the main detection techniques are described and, later, the main applications of these flow methods are highlighted, paying special attention to the recent incorporation of new detection techniques in optosensing and to the design of multiparameter sensors. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of the different flow methodologies here described are critically discussed.