Brain Injury Screening Diagnostics for Emergency Medicine: Quantitation of Cerebrospinal Fluid Specific Proteins in Human Nasal Discharge

A microfluidic device with integrated sample preparation is introduced for the detection of cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea—a condition resulting in leakage of CSF from the nose due to head trauma. While CSF rhinorrhea is a serious condition, current state-of-the-art diagnostics are expensive or slow (MRI, CT scan or ELISA). We show the capability of a microfluidic immunoassay to accept and processes raw biological fluids with integrated sample preparation steps prior to characterizing biomarker content via immunosubtraction PAGE. Results indicate the ability to rapidly identify and differentiate CSF from nasal mucus based on their biomarker profile in less than 5 minutes.