Photo by UW-Madison, University Communications

A new tool will lead to more accurate diagnoses of asthma.

That’s what the University of Wisconsin reported today, as a team of its scientists created a device that measures a previously unknown correlation between asthmatic patients and the most abundant type of white blood cells in the body.

“Right now, asthma diagnosis is based on indirect measures,” UW Professor of Biomedical Engineering David Beebe said in a statement. “This is one of the first studies to show that this process could actually work in a cheap, easy and practical way.”

According to a release, Beebe’s team diagnosed asthma by tracking the velocity of neutrophil cells’ (white blood cells) migration.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the team’s findings last week.