Centrifugal microfluidics has attracted much interest from academia as well as industry, since it potentially offers solutions for affordable, user-friendly and portable biosensing. A wide range of so-called fluidic unit operations, e.g. mixing, metering, liquid routing, and particle separation, have been developed and allow automation and integration of complex assay protocols in lab-on-a-disc systems. Besides liquid handling, the detection strategy for reading out the assay is crucial for developing a fully integrated system. In this review, we focus on biosensors and readout methods for the centrifugal microfluidics platform and cover optical as well as mechanical and electrical detection principles. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.