Abstract
The review describes the technologies used in the field of breath analysis to diagnose and monitor diabetes mellitus. Currently the diagnosis and monitoring of blood glucose and ketone bodies that are used in clinical studies involve the use of blood tests. This method entails pricking fingers for a drop of blood and placing a drop on a sensitive area of a strip which is pre-inserted into an electronic reading instrument. Furthermore, it is painful, invasive and expensive, and can be unsafe if proper handling is not undertaken. Human breath analysis offers a non-invasive and rapid method for detecting various volatile organic compounds thatare indicators for different diseases. In patients with diabetes mellitus, the body produces excess amounts of ketones such as acetoacetate, beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetone. Acetone is exhaled during respiration. The production of acetone is a result of the body metabolising fats instead of glucose to produce energy. There are various techniques that are used to analyse exhaled breath including Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS), Proton Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry (PTR–MS), Selected Ion Flow Tube-Mass Spectrometry (SIFT–MS), laser photoacoustic spectrometry and so on. All these techniques are not portable, therefore this review places emphasis on how nanotechnology, through semiconductor sensing nanomaterials, has the potential to help individuals living with diabetes mellitus monitor their disease with cheap and portable devices.
Highlights
The detection of acetone in diabetes-affected breath strengthens the possibility for successful treatment and maintains the demand for cheap, non-invasive and quantitative diagnosis of diabetes mellitus
People living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus are required to monitor their disease daily; at least twice a day in order to manage and monitor the blood glucose level
The diagnosis and monitoring of blood glucose as well as ketone bodies currently used in clinical studies on diabetic and prediabetes patients involve the use of blood tests [7]
Summary
The detection of acetone in diabetes-affected breath strengthens the possibility for successful treatment and maintains the demand for cheap, non-invasive and quantitative diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. The diagnosis and monitoring of blood glucose as well as ketone bodies currently used in clinical studies on diabetic and prediabetes patients involve the use of blood tests [7]. The largest economy of the region.A growth in the economy directly impacts the lifestyle of the people, and this is evident in the diet-related issues such as diabetes mellitus [17].there is a great potential need of using breath acetone as a biomarker for diabetes mellitus, and detect it using non-invasive chemoresistive sensors. Many studies have reported on non-invasive analysis of breath for detection of diseases using techniques such as gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC–MS), proton transfer reaction with mass spectrometry (PTR–MS) and many other sensitive techniques [3,21,22,23,24] These techniques are sensitive and reliable, they are not portable for daily monitoring. We are going to outline the advantages of the nano-based sensors for detection of VOCs, more especially for acetone over other techniques that are used
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