Recent advances in biosensors for diagnosis and detection of sepsis: A comprehensive review

Sepsis is one of the leading causes of mortality among critically ill patients globally. According to WHO report 2018, it is estimated to affect beyond 30 million people worldwide every year. It causes loss of human lives, which arise from infection and inflammation and long term stay in intensive care unit (ICU) in hospitals. Despite the availability of satisfactory prognostic markers contributing to the diagnosis of sepsis, millions of people die even after admission to the hospitals. Correct and early diagnosis of sepsis leads to rapid administration of appropriate antibiotics can thus potentially avert the attainment to critical stages of sepsis, thereby saving human lives. Conventional diagnostic practices are costly, time consuming and they lack adequate sensitivity and selectivity, provoking an urgent need for developing alternate sepsis diagnosis systems. Nevertheless, biosensors have the much-treasured scope for reasonable sepsis diagnosis. Advancement in nano-biotechnology has provided new paradigm for biosensor platforms with upgraded features. Here, we provide an overview of the recent advances in biosensors with a brief introduction to sepsis, followed by the conventional methods of diagnosis and bio-sensing. To conclude, a proactive role and an outlook on technologically advanced biosensor platforms are discoursed with possible biomedical applications.