We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. To learn more, click here. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies. Cookie Policy.

Features Partner Sites Information LinkXpress
Sign In
Advertise with Us
GLOBETECH PUBLISHING LLC

Download Mobile App




Portable Nanoplasmonic Imager Detects Sepsis Faster

By MedImaging International staff writers
Posted on 05 Feb 2020
Print article
Image: A nano-scale optical biosensor can rapidly detect sepsis (Photo courtesy of EPFL)
Image: A nano-scale optical biosensor can rapidly detect sepsis (Photo courtesy of EPFL)
A highly portable device based on a nano-scale optical biosensor can rapidly detect inflammatory biomarkers in a patient's bloodstream.

Developed at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL; Switzerland), Hospital Universitari Vall dHebron (Barcelona, Spain), and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain), the new device employs a gold-based metasurface that concentrates light around billions of nanoholes. Nanoparticles that capture the sepsis biomarkers procalcitonin (PCT) and C‐reactive protein (CRP) are distributed on the metasurface, and those that have captured biomarkers are trapped in the nanoholes. When an LED is applied, they partially obstruct the light passing through the perforated metasurface, allowing detection with a CMOS camera.

In field studies with a wide range of patient samples with sepsis, noninfectious systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), and healthy subjects, the device achieves an outstanding limit of detection of 21.3 pg mL−1 for PCT and 36 pg mL−1 for CRP. The results were validated against clinical diagnosis and currently used immunoassays, providing a performance level equivalent to the gold‐standard laboratory tests. Importantly, the plasmonic imager can enable identification of PCT levels typical of sepsis and SIRS patients in less than 15 minutes. The study was published on January 23, 2020, in Small.

“The device proved to be particularly suitable for on‐site operation due to its portability, inexpensive off‐the‐shelf optical components, and because it does not involve any moving parts or complex microfluidic elements prone to clogging,” concluded lead author Alexander Belushkin, PhD, of the EPFL Institute of BioEngineering, and colleagues. “Importantly, the sensor chips and bioassay reagents can be stored in the fridge stably over weeks and unlike previously reported optical detection schemes, do not require fluorescent tags that can be expensive, unstable, and difficult to produce.”

Sepsis is the primary cause of death in hospitals, and one of the ten leading causes of death worldwide, claiming a life every four seconds. It is associated with the body's inflammatory response to a bacterial infection and progresses extremely rapidly: every hour that goes by before it is properly diagnosed and treated increases the mortality rate by nearly 8%. Time is critical with sepsis, but the tests currently used in hospitals can take up to 72 hours to provide a diagnosis.

Related Links:
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Hospital Universitari Vall dHebron
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona


Gold Member
Solid State Kv/Dose Multi-Sensor
AGMS-DM+
New
Silver Member
Mobile X-Ray Barrier
Lead Acrylic Mobile X-Ray Barriers
New
Thyroid Shield
Standard Thyroid Shield
New
Oncology Information System
RayCare

Print article

Channels

Ultrasound

view channel
Image: Structure of the proposed transparent ultrasound transducer and its optical transmittance (Photo courtesy of POSTECH)

Ultrasensitive Broadband Transparent Ultrasound Transducer Enhances Medical Diagnosis

The ultrasound-photoacoustic dual-modal imaging system combines molecular imaging contrast with ultrasound imaging. It can display molecular and structural details inside the body in real time without... Read more

Nuclear Medicine

view channel
Image: PET/CT of a 60-year-old male patient with clinical suspicion of lung cancer (Photo courtesy of EJNMMI Physics)

Early 30-Minute Dynamic FDG-PET Acquisition Could Halve Lung Scan Times

F-18 FDG-PET scans are a way to look inside the body using a special dye, and these scans can be either static or dynamic. Static scans happen 60 minutes after the dye is administered into the body, showing... Read more

Imaging IT

view channel
Image: The new Medical Imaging Suite makes healthcare imaging data more accessible, interoperable and useful (Photo courtesy of Google Cloud)

New Google Cloud Medical Imaging Suite Makes Imaging Healthcare Data More Accessible

Medical imaging is a critical tool used to diagnose patients, and there are billions of medical images scanned globally each year. Imaging data accounts for about 90% of all healthcare data1 and, until... Read more

Industry News

view channel
Image: The acquisition will expand IBA’s medical imaging quality assurance offering (Photo courtesy of Radcal)

IBA Acquires Radcal to Expand Medical Imaging Quality Assurance Offering

Ion Beam Applications S.A. (IBA, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium), the global leader in particle accelerator technology and a world-leading provider of dosimetry and quality assurance (QA) solutions, has entered... Read more
Copyright © 2000-2024 Globetech Media. All rights reserved.