Monitoring Pancreatic α-Amylase of Postoperative Patients with Droplet-Based Microfluidics

This study presents a groundbreaking portable droplet-based microfluidic device capable of real-time detecting α-amylase activity in drainage fluids for postoperative patient monitoring. By implementing this strategy, the determination time for α-amylase levels is significantly reduced from several hours, the current clinical standard, to just three minutes.1 The device demonstrates a remarkable improvement in detection sensitivity, reaching a detection limit of 7 nmol/s·L, an order of magnitude enhancement compared to the recent state of the art.2 Moreover, a mere 10 μL of drain liquid and reagent are necessary for each measurement reducing material requirement and waste.3,4 Crucially, this real-time continuous detection strategy circumvents delays in diagnosis, ensuring prompt treatment of life-threatening complications. Figure 1A illustrates the schematic representation of real-time α-amylase detection in the microfluidic device. A minute volume of patient exudate is continuously gathered and enclosed with a starch reagent within 200 nL droplets. The emitted fluorescence intensity is monitored as a measure of α-amylase activity. Distinct fluorescence intensities were emitted when various concentrations of standard amylase solutions reacted with a fixed quantity of reagent, as shown in Figure 1B, by which the calibration curve is obtained (Figure 1C). A total of 32 patient samples were assessed, and the amylase concentration was determined using the established calibration curve. Evaluation of the results, as depicted in Figure 1D, reveals the dependable detection accuracy of the droplet-based microfluidic device compared to clinical gold-standard methods.