A feasibility study of Covid-19 detection using breath analysis by high-pressure photon ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Abstract

Background: SARS-CoV-2 has caused a tremendous threat to global health. PCR and antigen testing have played a prominent role in the detection of SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals and disease control. An efficient, reliable detection tool is still urgently needed to halt the global COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, FDA emergency approved VOC as an alternative test for COVID-19 detection. Methods and materials: In this case-control study, we prospectively and consecutively recruited 95 confirmed COVID-19 patients and 106 healthy controls in the designated hospital for treatment of COVID-19 patients in Shenzhen, China. Exhaled breath samples were collected and stored in customized bags and then detected by HPPI-TOFMS for volatile organic components (VOCs). Machine learning (ML) algorithms were employed for COVID-19 detection model construction. Participants were randomly assigned in a 5:2:3 ratio to the training, validation, and blinded test sets. The sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), and other general metrics were employed for the VOCs based COVID-19 detection model performance evaluation. Results: The VOCs based COVID-19 detection model achieved good performance, with a SEN of 92.2% (95% CI: 83.8%, 95.6%), a SPE of 86.1% (95% CI: 74.8%, 97.4%) on blinded test set. Five potential VOC ions related to COVID-19 infection were discovered, which are significantly different between COVID-19 infected patients and controls. Conclusions: This study evaluated a simple, fast, non-invasive VOCs-based COVID-19 detection method and demonstrated that it has good sensitivity and specificity in distinguishing COVID-19 infected patients from controls. It has great potential for fast and accurate COVID-19 detection.

Volatolomics analysis of exhaled breath and gastric-endoluminal gas for distinguishing early upper gastrointestinal cancer from benign

“…Therefore, UVP-TOFMS and GC-MS complement each other. GC-MS is conducive to discovering new biomarkers [21], and UVP-TOFMS is suitable for rapid sample analysis [24]. In this study, the performance of exhaled breath analysis for diagnosis of UGI cancer based on GC-MS and UVP-TOFMS was comparable, with AUC of 0.959 and 0.994, respectively.…”

“…UVP-TOFMS is a promising exhaled breath analysis tool with the advantages of fast analysis, high sensitivity, and no sample preconcentration [23]. By analyzing VOCs in exhaled breath, UVP-TOFMS has been used in the diagnosis of COVID-19 [24], lung cancer [25], and esophageal cancer [26]. The UVP-TOFMS consisted of a vacuum ultraviolet lamp ion source, a radiofrequency quadrupole ion guide, and an orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight mass analyzer.…”

A detection model for cognitive dysfunction based on volatile organic compounds from a large Chinese community cohort

“…All samples were detected within 2 to 4 hours after sampling. Our previous studies have shown that the PEEK breath bags had a limited impact with relative differences <20% on VOCs in the collected breath samples in 24 hours 17 . Exhaled breath was collected after the neuropsychological assessment.…”

“…Our previous studies have shown that the PEEK breath bags had a limited impact with relative differences <20% on VOCs in the collected breath samples in 24 hours. 17 Exhaled breath was collected after the neuropsychological assessment. The neuropsychologists and data analysis team were blinded to the clinical diagnoses and the results of breath testing.…”

Direct and Reagentless Atmospheric Pressure Photoionisation Mass Spectrometry: Rapid and Accurate Differentiation of Cystic Fibrosis Related Bacteria by Monitoring VOCs

“…Photoionisation(PI)-based methods for breath analysis is a growing area of research 36 . Recently, Zhang et al 37 achieved good sensitivity detecting SARS-COV-2 infection using PI with high-resolution MS (HRMS) and machine learning (ML) based on breath VOC pro les. Zhou et al 38 modi ed a commercial APPI front end to facilitate breath sampling/analysis 38 ; using a high-resolution Q-ToF and collision induced dissociation (CID) they reported identi cation of new metabolites in breath.…”