Bedside blood test for sepsis could save thousands of lives

The life-threatening condition is caused by an overwhelming immune reaction to infection that damages tissues and organs.

Each year sepsis costs the NHS more than £2bn and kills around 37,000 patients – more than breast and bowel cancer combined.

Rapid diagnosis and treatment with antibiotics is essential, but it can take up to two days to analyse samples in a laboratory.

Now scientists have discovered a biomarker in the blood that can identify sepsis at the bedside within two hours.

Certain microRNAs, short strands of the genetic molecule RNA, were more likely to be found in the blood of patients with sepsis.

MicroRNAs alter the activity of genes and are known to influence disease processes.

Professor Graham Lord, director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London, said: “We have for the first time identified a group of biomarkers in the blood that are good indicators of sepsis. We have shown that it is possible to detect these markers by screening a patient’s blood in the ward, a process which can deliver results within two hours. This is an extremely exciting development which has the potential to completely transform the management of this severe disease and save thousands of lives worldwide every year. Now we need to test this approach in a large clinical trial.”

The research, published in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE, showed it was possible to diagnose sepsis within two hours with 86 per cent accuracy.