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Smartphone-based assay diagnoses UTIs at point of care
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In a head-to-head comparison, researchers found that a smartphone-based assay was as good at detecting pathogens in urine specimens from sepsis patients as currently available “gold standard” clinical diagnostics, but provided results in far less time and for much less money, according to study findings published in EBioMedicine.
“Urinary tract infections (UTIs) cause nearly 10 million doctor visits each year in the United States. Thus, there is an urgent need for rapid, accurate, and affordable methods for the detection of UTI pathogens,” Michael J. Mahan, PhD, professor in the department of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Infectious Disease News.
Mahan and colleagues developed a smartphone-based real-time loop-mediated isothermal amplification system (smaRT-LAMP) to identify pathogens in patients with urinary sepsis. According to the study, the assay “requires little more than a smartphone, hot plate, LED lights, low force mini-centrifuge, and a cardboard box” and can be assembled for less than $100, minus the cellphone.
“The smartphone camera takes pictures of a fluorescent chemical reaction that detects the presence of bacterial DNA; the more fluorescence, the more bacteria present in the sample,” Mahan said.
When the researchers conducted a comparative bacterial analysis of urine from patients with sepsis, they found that the smaRT-LAMP assay matched the performance of clinical diagnostics but in a much shorter time frame, about 1 hour vs. 18 to 28 hours.
“Among patients with bacteremia complications of urinary sepsis, pathogen ID identification from the urine matched that from the blood — potentially allowing pathogen diagnosis shortly after hospital admission,” the researchers wrote.
Mahan and colleagues noted that the smartphone-based system did not produce false-positive results in patients who had clinically negative urine cultures.
“The smartphone-based assay thus offers the potential to deliver rapid diagnosis and treatment of UTIs with a simple test that can be performed at low cost at the point of care,” he said. – by Bruce Thiel
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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