Analytical challenges in breath analysis and its application to exposure monitoring

Alonso, Mònica; Sánchez, Juan Manuel

doi:10.1016/j.trac.2012.11.011

Cited by 54 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 123 publications

(308 reference statements)

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“…As many factors, including the exposure concentrations and durations, physiological and metabolic differences of individuals, types of breath samples (mixed exhaled air or alveolar air), sampling and analytical methods [27,[101][102][103], could affect the respiratory AFs, it is difficult to determine whether the differences in AFs between studies were due to differences in subjects, test methods or exposure concentrations (much lower in this study than in the previous studies). However, the AFs observed in this study under low-level BTEX exposure were comparable with most of those conducted under unbelievably high BTEX exposure concentrations, suggesting that initial exposure concentration might not be a critical factor to the AFs considering that the possible errors might also be brought by variability in individual subjects and test methods.…”

Section: Preliminary Tests Of Real-time Afsmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…Nowadays, human breath analysis has become an emerging bio-monitoring tool frequently used in clinical disease diagnosis for endogenous VOCs and exposure risk assessment for exogenous VOCs [27]. Compared to blood or urine analysis, breath analysis has many advantages, such as noninvasive, easily repeated, totally painless and agreeable to subjects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Real-time monitoring of respiratory absorption factors of volatile organic compounds in ambient air by proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Huang

Yan

Zhang

et al. 2016

Journal of Hazardous Materials

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Section: Preliminary Tests Of Real-time Afsmentioning

confidence: 79%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Real-time monitoring of respiratory absorption factors of volatile organic compounds in ambient air by proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Huang

Yan

Zhang

et al. 2016

Journal of Hazardous Materials

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“…Treatment-naïve lung cancer patients were chosen to participate in our study to ensure that drug treatment would not affect the accuracy of the result and secondly, to study the performance of the sensor in diagnosing suspected lung cancer before diagnostic and treatment intervention. For breath analysis, the exhaled breath was not sampled or stored in collection bags for later analysis, instead, the levels of exhaled alkane compounds were measured on-site directly and immediately so the decomposition or the loss of VOCs by diffusion would not take place (30,31). Study subjects exhale 200 times to ensure sufficient period of time for the sensor to reach peak resistance, as our preclinical experiments showed that it could take up to 500 s to generate sensor peak output.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tidal breathing, which was the breathing manoeuvre used in this study, was considered the most reliable methodology (31). The study subjects participating in our study were encouraged to ventilate normally and naturally in the study, and breath samples were obtained from a series exhalation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using a chemiresistor-based alkane sensor to distinguish exhaled breaths of lung cancer patients from subjects with no lung cancer

Tan¹,

Yong

Liam³

2016

J. Thorac. Dis.

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Background: Breath alkanes are reported to be able to discriminate lung cancer patients from healthy people. A simple chemiresistor-based sensor was designed to respond to alkanes by a change in resistance measured by a digital multimeter connected to the sensor. In preclinical experiments, the sensor response was found to have a strong positive linear relationship with alkane compounds and not responsive to water.This study aimed to determine the ability of the alkane sensor to distinguish the exhaled breaths of lung cancer patients from that of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients and control subjects without lung cancer. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 12 treatment-naive patients with lung cancer, 12 ex-or current smokers with COPD and 13 never-smokers without lung disease were asked to exhale through a drinking straw into a prototype breath-in apparatus made from an empty 125 mL Vitagen ® bottle with the chemiresistor sensor attached at its inside bottom to measure the sensor peak output (percentage change of baseline resistance measured before exhalation to peak resistance) and the time taken for the baseline resistance to reach peak resistance. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in finding a diagnostic method for lung cancer that is minimally invasive, free of radiation and accurate in detecting lung cancer at its early stage. This is because the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) (3) conducted on 53,454 study subjects demonstrated that the chest tomography (CT) scan and chest X-ray imaging are associated with very high false-positive results in detecting lung cancer in early stages (96.4% for low-dose CT scan; 94.5% for chest X-ray). Furthermore, one person out of 2,500 people screened by chest imaging will die of radiationinduced cancer (4). To address this issue, previous studies show that using the pattern of endogenous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the exhaled breath for the detection of lung cancer is one of the promising solutions. Cellular metabolisms produce VOCs, such as alcohols, alkanes, etc., that will be carried in the bloodstream. Subsequently, the VOCs diffuse into the alveolar air in the blood-gas interface quickly in the lung because of their low solubility in the blood, and they are exhaled out of the lung (5). Therefore, analysing the composition of VOCs in exhaled breath can provide a window into the biochemical process of the body and detect altered metabolism, particularly in cancer cells. This method has a few advantages: it is non-invasive, potentially inexpensive and it is very easy to obtain exhaled breath (6,7). Compared to biomarkers in serum, the breath contains a less complicated mixture of VOCs. Moreover, breath testing provides direct and real-time monitoring, and has the potential of detecting lung cancer when it is still localised as VOCs markers are transmitted to the alveoli to be exhaled at the onset of the disease. Another important advantage is the presence of lung cancer tumour is not masked by other diseases sin...

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“…In addition, exhaled breath analysis can be done rapidly with fast turnaround time and minimal biohazard waste [11]. However, VOCs differ in their physico-chemical characteristics, and thus pose sampling and analytical challenges for routine breath analysis at a wide network of monitoring sites where outdoor/indoor or occupational exposures are of concern [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative Analysis of VOCs in Exhaled Breath from Asian Volunteers: A Pilot Study

Balasubramanian¹

2014

J Mol Biomark Diagn

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Background: High incidences of respiratory ailments have been long attributed to rapid industrialization and fast economic growth in developing nations within Asia. Urbanization in particular has led to a significant increase in outdoor and indoor air pollution in Asian countries, affecting lung health for different population groups. Air pollutants enter the human systems via the inhalation pathway, and their measurement in exhaled breath has been suggested as a non-invasive alternative for early diagnosis of asthma and lung cancer. Routine monitoring of selected volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in breath often requires the use of robust analytical techniques with standardized sample collection procedures for reliable risk assessment. Currently, such analytical data are relatively sparse in the literature for Asian population groups due to lack of quantitative analysis of VOCs in exhaled breath. To fill the knowledge gap, a present pilot study was initiated to evaluate the suitability of an in situ instrumental technique for breath measurements among a small group of diverse Asian volunteers.

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Analytical challenges in breath analysis and its application to exposure monitoring

Cited by 54 publications

References 123 publications

Real-time monitoring of respiratory absorption factors of volatile organic compounds in ambient air by proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Real-time monitoring of respiratory absorption factors of volatile organic compounds in ambient air by proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Using a chemiresistor-based alkane sensor to distinguish exhaled breaths of lung cancer patients from subjects with no lung cancer

Quantitative Analysis of VOCs in Exhaled Breath from Asian Volunteers: A Pilot Study

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