Current methods for the diagnosis of sepsis have insufficient precision, causing regular misdiagnoses. Microbiological tests can help to diagnose sepsis, but are usually too slow to have an impact on timely clinical decision-making. Neutrophils have a high sensitivity to infections, yet measurements of neutrophil surface markers, genomic changes and phenotype alterations have had only a marginal effect on sepsis diagnosis. Here, we report a microfluidic assay that measures, from one droplet of diluted blood, the spontaneous motility of neutrophils in the presence of plasma.

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