Observational pilot study of the diagnostic potential of a rapid point-of-care blood test in detecting sepsis in an Emergency Department (ED) setting

Research summary

Sepsis is a life-threatening emergency that happens when your body's response to an infection damages vital organs which can often lead to death. In the UK, there are about 245,000 sepsis cases leading to around 48,000 deaths each year, making it a leading cause of death in the UK. Despite considerable recent progress, detecting sepsis in the Emergency Department (ED) remains a challenge. Paramedics and ED doctors often miss signs of sepsis, with the current National Early Warning Score which is based on scoring six simple physiological parameters, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, systolic blood pressure, pulse rate, level of consciousness or new confusion and temperature, regularly leading to missed diagnoses. This is a problem because early detection is key to saving lives in sepsis; each one-hour delay in diagnosis results in an approximately 8% increase in likelihood of death. Current markers of sepsis have limitations for use in the ED due to the time it takes for them to respond to the patient’s changing condition. Seroxo has demonstrated a rapid bedside test that uses a handheld device to measure a key aspect of a patient’s immune system. The patented LIT™ is a portable easy-to-use test that requires a small drop of blood from either a finger-prick or a fresh venous blood sample and produces a result in ten-minutes. It tells the doctors how well a patient’s immune system is functioning. The aim of this feasibility study is to evaluate whether LIT can be used as a diagnostic tool to rapidly identify patients with sepsis in an ED setting. The study aims to investigate the differences in LIT levels between patients attending ED with suspected sepsis which is later confirmed (patient discharge diagnosis with positive infection) versus the LIT scores for those patients who are found to be sepsis negative.

Principal Investigator

Mr Alex Novak

Contact us

Email: emergency.research@oxnet.nhs.uk

IRAS number

343833