Biomarker Discovery in Emergency Care – A Suggested Development Pathway

Abstract Background: Biomarkers are widely used in medical diagnosis with rigorous pathways for the identification, development. However, there are no published pathways for emergency care. Aim: We aim to synthesise the existing literature on biomarker development in order to produce a Biomarker Development Pathway for a physiological biomarker relevant to emergency care.Methods: Medline, BIOSIS, the National Center for Biotechnology Information databases and the Web of Science for relevant articles. Material published on websites was searched using two internet search engines (Google Scholar and Ask). Websites of organisations involved in biomarker development were also ‘hand searched’ for relevant information.Results: We identified 536 papers, of which 14 were relevant to the methodology of biomarker development. One additional paper was found by hand searching from websites.Conclusions: There were no papers that explored the specific requirements for the development of a physiological biomarker in emergency care. The biomarker development pathway published here will guide emergency care researchers in a sequential approach to biomarker development, enable description of the stage of their technology development in grant applications, and give technology development companies a clear route ‘downstream’ to clinical use.