MXene-Powered Terahertz Metamaterials as a Real-Time Biosensing Platform for In Vivo Thrombus Monitoring

Precise, timely, and personalized in vivo thrombus monitoring is critical for improving the treatment effectiveness and clinical outcomes of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Terahertz (THz) spectroscopy has become increasingly important as a novel tool in biomedical engineering due to its rapid analysis ability, high temporal resolution, and label-free measurement modality. However, achieving high thrombus sensing performance in real blood environments remains a significant challenge. In this work, a thrombus sensing platform is developed using an MXene-powered THz hybrid metamaterial, which substantially increases early thrombus detection sensitivity and real-time sensing ability by utilizing the highly sensitive THz response from the interfacial charge transfer between MXene and the thrombus. When applied to patients receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation therapy, the sensitivity (94.7%) and accuracy (92.3%) of diagnosing a thrombus using this platform surpassed the capabilities of current clinical methods, including the thromboelastogram and the activated clotting time (ACT) method. Furthermore, the platform provides faster assay performances for in vivo thrombus detection (6 min in advance) and anticoagulant effectiveness feedback (2 min in advance) than the ACT method. The proposed platform demonstrates the potential for tailoring clinical anticoagulation strategies for individual patients to substantially reduce the current high risk of thrombus complications among those with CVDs.