Biosensors & Bioelectronics

Blood Coagulation Thromboplastine Time Measurements on a Nanoparticle Coated Quartz Crystal Microbalance Biosensor in Excellent Agreement with Standard Clinical Methods

Abstract

Munawar Hussain, Stefan Sinn1, Martin Zeilinger, Hinnak Northoff, Peter A Lieberzeit and Frank K Gehring

Measurements of parameters of hemostasis like thromboplastine time (PT) have primary significance in many clinical settings including extensive surgery, dialysis or innate disorders of hemostasis. Recently, several reports have documented the principle suitability of Quartz Crystal Microbalances (QCM) for measuring parameters of hemostasis like PT or platelet aggregation. But for the establishment of an exact QCM based method as alternative to standard coagulometer measuring QCM coatings with significantly enhanced robustness and reusability have to be worked out. For this purpose we utilized a new semi-automated equipment qCell T for measuring and compared different coatings consisting of polymer films and absorbed nanoparticles (NPs). We demonstrated that affinity based poly ethylene NPs absorbed to polymer films on the QCM constitute a powerful tool with no need for pretreatment for measuring PT in whole blood samples in real time, while these coatings are reusable up to 10 times. PT measurements in excellent agreement with coagulometer tests pave the way for possible future application of QCM in clinical routine.