Digital Dipstick point-of-care diagnostic test for urinary tract infections

We introduce a sensitive dipstick sensor to detect urinary tract infections.
Urinary tract infections are the most common bacterial infections, and over 50% of women suffer from such infection at least once in their lifetime. Current over-the-counter dipsticks to detect bacteria in urine are not sensitive enough and therefore often result in a negative test of infected patients. Tests that are sensitive enough, such as those performed at hospitals, require trained personnel and often take days between urine sampling and answer. As a result, patients with suspected infection are often treated empirically with antibiotics, that means, without knowing whether or not they are infected. The treatment of non-infected patients make the patient more sick than healthy, however, and forms a major cause of antibiotic resistance in society.
In this study, we present a dipstick-format digital biosensor (Digital Dipstick) that detects bacteria directly from urine with a minimal number of steps: dip, culture, and count. We demonstrated the quantitative detection of Escherichia coli bacteria in urine in the clinically relevant range with 89% sensitivity overnight.
The significance and uniqueness of our Digital Dipsticks are that they allow a non-trained person to detect urinary tract infections in the clinically relevant range in the home setting. Furthermore, the “digital” nature of the test provides read-out by simple cell phone camera and offers an easy way to develop the test further for antibiotic susceptibility testing on the same device. We thus expect our test to enable better management and use of antibiotics, which in turn will reduce antibiotic resistance in society and improve patient outcomes.
Link to the paper:
https://doi.org/10.1039/D0LC00793E