Featured Article Main Category: Blood / Hematology Also Included In: Cardiovascular / Cardiology;Stroke;Urology / Nephrology Article Date: 18 Oct 2013 - 8:00 PDT

Current ratings for: Nanotechnology urine test could detect deadly blood clots

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Blood clots, often unexposed until they break away and result in a stroke or heart attack, can form for a number of reasons in anyone. But now, researchers from MIT have developed a simple urine test that uses nanoparticles to detect thrombin, a major blood-clotting element.

The researchers, who published the details of their system in the journal ACS Nano, hope this test could be used to monitor patients who are at high risk for blood clots.

Though we often associate blood clots with elderly patients, anyone who sits on a plane for prolonged periods of time, lies in a bed while recovering from surgery, or who takes certain medications can be at risk.

In 2012, Medical News Today reported that contraceptives containing Drospirenone have a higher blood clot risk, for example.

In the recent past, young celebrities who have died from blood clots - celebrity stylist Annabel Tollman - or who have been hospitalized due to them - Mariah Carey's husband Nick Cannon - have brought attention to the fact that anyone is at risk.

And the researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), led by Professor Sangeeta Bhatia, say that until now, there has not been a fast or easy way to diagnose these blood clots.

Prof. Bhatia says that "some patients are at more risk for clotting, but existing blood tests are not consistently able to detect the formation of new clots."

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Nanotechnology urine test could detect deadly blood clots