Monitoring neurochemistry in traumatic brain injury patients using microdialysis integrated with biosensors: a review

Abstract

Abstract: In a traumatically injured brain, the cerebral microdialysis technique allows continu-ous sampling of fluid from the brain’s extracellular space. The retrieved brain fluid contains use-ful metabolites that indicate the brain energy state. Assessment of these metabolites along with other parameters such as intracranial pressure, brain tissue oxygenation and cerebral perfusion pressure, may help inform clinical decision-making, guide medical treatments, and aid in prog-nostication of patient outcome. Currently, brain metabolites are assayed on bedside analysers and results can only be achieved hourly. This is a major drawback because critical information within each hour is lost. To address this, recent advances have focussed on developing biosensing techniques for integration with microdialysis to achieve continuous online monitoring. In this re-view, we discuss progress in this field, focusing on various types of sensing devices and their ability to quantify specific cerebral metabolites at clinically relevant concentrations. Important points that require further investigation are highlighted, and comments on future perspectives are provided.