Abstract
For many diseases, where a particular organ is affected, chemical by-products can be found in the patient’s exhaled breath. Breath analysis is often done using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, but interpretation of results is difficult and time-consuming. We performed characterization of patients’ exhaled breath samples by an electronic nose technique based on an array of nanomechanical membrane sensors. Each membrane is coated with a different thin polymer layer. By pumping the exhaled breath into a measurement chamber, volatile organic compounds present in patients’ breath diffuse into the polymer layers and deform the membranes by changes in surface stress. The bending of the membranes is measured piezoresistively and the signals are converted into voltages. The sensor deflection pattern allows one to characterize the condition of the patient. In a clinical pilot study, we investigated breath samples from head and neck cancer patients and healthy control persons. Evaluation using principal component analysis (PCA) allowed a clear distinction between the two groups. As head and neck cancer can be completely removed by surgery, the breath of cured patients was investigated after surgery again and the results were similar to those of the healthy control group, indicating that surgery was successful.
Highlights
More than a century ago, medical practitioners asked patients to exhale in order to figure out whether their breath contained specific smells possibly related to a particular disease
We propose here a non-invasive diagnostic technique based on detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath using an electronic nose technique
In a clinical pilot study, we investigated breath samples from head and neck cancer patients and healthy donors as control persons in a double blind trial
Summary
More than a century ago, medical practitioners asked patients to exhale in order to figure out whether their breath contained specific smells possibly related to a particular disease. This old idea is here adopted to investigate breath samples of cancer patients using a nanomechanical electronic nose device. Specific chemical tracer substances or chemical by-products of metabolic processes are often found in the patient’s breath for many diseases of the respiratory tract system. An electronic nose technique is presented to characterize patients’ exhaled breath samples in a non-invasive way which allows a simpler analysis than with the abovementioned classical standard analytical procedures.
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