The new technology involves detection of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha protein, which is known to be a marker for numerous inflammatory diseases such as Crohn's Disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and spondylitis.

CIC microGUNE (Arrasate-Mondragón, Spain) and Biodonostia (Derio, Spain) are testing the new technique, which has been developed jointly by the two centers, for evaluating intestinal diseases in patients and for assessing the severity of inflammatory intestinal diseases. They are testing the technique in patients at the Donostia Hospital (San Sebastian, Spain).

In contrast to current methods for diagnosing Crohn's Disease, such as endoscopy, the TNF-alpha detection technique developed by CIC microGUNE and Biodonostia is essentially noninvasive, as it only requires a small amount of blood.

Further development of the technique is expected to lead to deposition of the blood sample on a microdevice incorporated into a credit card-sized support. This support will then be introduced into a reader, which will provide the diagnosis in only a few minutes. It also has the advantage of being able to determine the severity of the disease much more accurately.

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