Lab-on-a-disc developed for urinary tract infections

Researchers develop lab-on-a-disc device for fast diagnostics of urinary tract infections

Untreated urinary tract infections may trigger sepsis, a disease that can be deadly. Early diagnosis could save lives and reduce healthcare costs.

In the journal Biomicrofluidics the team describes creating a lab-on-a-disc platform that combines microfluidics and Raman microscopy, a modern optical detection method.

Its medical diagnostics device is designed to harness centrifugal force to capture the tiny bacteria directly from patients' samples of bodily fluids.

The work involves extremely small sample sizes, on the scale of a small raindrop, so the device needed to be a microfluidic one.

The team's concept then adds Raman spectroscopy to its centrifugal microfluidic platform.

Ute Neugebauer, group leader at the Jena University Hospital and Leibniz Institute of Technology, said: "Raman spectroscopy uses the way light interacts with matter to produce 'unique scattering,' the equivalent of a molecular fingerprint, which can then be used to identify the types of bacteria present.”

Ulrich-Christian Schröder, a PhD student at the Jena University Hospital and Leibniz Institute of Technology in Germany, said: "In our pilot study, we were able to identify Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis, two species known to cause urinary tract infections, within 70 minutes, directly from patients' urine samples."

The speedy diagnosis marks a large reduction in the wait time associated with methods routinely used to identify bacteria and diagnose urinary tract infections.

Neugebaur said: “The next step will involve implementing antibiotic susceptibility testing and automating the sample pre-treatment steps.

"Our ultimate vision is to apply the concepts behind our device to enable diagnostics devices for use with other bodily fluids."