Electronic nose as a surrogate marker of response to treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis (ELNOSUR study)

Abstract

Introduction: We tested an electronic nose as a surrogate marker of response to treatment in pulmonary TB in INERAM, a specialised pulmonary diseases reference centre in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. Objectives: To evaluate AEONOSE®, an electronic nose device, as a surrogate marker of treatment response in pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). Methods: we conducted an observational study in adult patients. A first air sample was taken just before starting TB treatment and subsequently was repeated every week until ending the initial phase of treatment. Results: we included 9 patients. Analysis of the first nine patients showed interesting results (see graph 1 below). All patients showed a positive signal at start (threshold 0.22). Eight of them showed a rather steep decline of the slope after 2 - 7 weeks but none of them reached < 0.5 within the initial phase of treatment. Conclusions: in this pilot study the AEONOSE® breath examination showed an interesting response to treatment in 8/9 (89%) of the patients.