Portable Droplet-based Real-time Monitoring of Pancreatic α-amylase in Postoperative Patients | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Portable Droplet-based Real-time Monitoring of Pancreatic α-amylase in Postoperative Patients Larysa Baraban, Xinne Zhao, Fiona Kolbinger, Marius Distler, Jürgen Weitz, and 2 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-2800086/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Postoperative complications after pancreatic surgery are frequent and life-threatening. Current clinical diagnostic strategies involve time-consuming quantification of α-amylase activity in abdominal drain fluid, which is taken on the first and third postoperative day. The lack of real-time data can delay adjustment of medical treatment upon complications and worsen prognosis for patients. We report a bedside portable droplet-based millifluidic device enabling real-time sensing of drain α-amylase activity for postoperative monitoring of patients undergoing pancreatic surgery. Here, a tiny amount of drain liquid of patient samples is continuously collected and co-encapsulated with a starch reagent in nanoliter-sized droplets to track the fluorescence intensity released upon reaction with α-amylase. Comparing the α-amylase levels of 32 patients, 97% of the results of the droplet-based millifluidic system matched the clinical data. Our method reduces the α-amylase assay time to approximately three minutes, which is a major improvement compared to the current clinical standard of several hours in the clinic. Furthermore, the device reveals an order of magnitude improvement in the limit of detection, reaching 7 nmol/s·L. The presented droplet-based diagnostics platform can be extended for analysis of different body fluids, diseases, and towards a broader range of biomarkers, including lipase, bilirubin, lactate, inflammation, or liquid biopsy markers, setting up new standards in clinical patient monitoring. Physical sciences/Engineering/Biomedical engineering Health sciences Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SIZhao.docx Supplementary info: device, calibration, analysis Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-2800086","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":191468294,"identity":"33409008-81db-491c-9a63-766ad668db96","order_by":0,"name":"Larysa 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