Hanyang Med Rev.  2014 Aug;34(3):125-129. 10.7599/hmr.2014.34.3.125.

Exhaled Breath Analysis System based on Electronic Nose Techniques Applicable to Lung Diseases

• Byun HG
• Yu JB
• Huh JS
• Lim JO

• KMID: 2284353
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.7599/hmr.2014.34.3.125

Abstract

Smell used to be a common diagnostic tool in medicine, and physicians were trained to use their sense of smell during their medical training. Latterly, odor disgnostics have been relegated to secondary status as a diagnostic method. Array-based gas sensors ("Electronic Nose") now offer the potential of a robust analytical approach to exhaled breath analysis for medical use. Many diseases are accompanied by characteristic odor, and their recognition can provide diagonostic clues, guide the laboratory evaluation, and affect the choice of immediate therapy. We are developing an intelligent sensor system for non-invasive health care monitoring combined laboratory based sensor module, pattern recognition subsystem and non-invasive sampling of volatile emitted from a patient into a highly intelligent sensor system that allows the rapid processing of these samples. It is capable to assist early and rapid disgnosis of changes in state of patient, and aid decision making by medical personnel in the treatment of such patients. In this paper, we introduce exhaled breath analysis for potential primary lung disease screening using electronic nose system incorporating an automated solid-phase microextraction (SPME) desorption to enable the system to be used. Aiming to increase the sensitivity, SPME preconcentration is used for sampling of headspace air and the response of sensor module to variable concentration of volatile emitted from SPME fiber is evaluated. The initial result shows the distinguished difference between the lung cancer patients and healthy normal individuals according to the analysis of the respective expiratory gases.

Keyword

Exhalation; Electronic Nose; Lung Diseases; VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds)

MeSH Terms

Decision Making
Delivery of Health Care
Electronic Nose*
Exhalation
Gases
Humans
Lung Diseases*
Lung Neoplasms
Mass Screening
Odors
Smell
Gases

Figure

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  Fig. 1 The basic elements that are working in an artificial olfaction system.

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  Fig. 2 Sampling bag used in collection for exhaled breath.

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  Fig. 3 A chemcial sensor array chamber and electronic nose prototype system with SPME fiber tray for real-time lung disease screening.

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  Fig. 4 Principal component analysis for exhaled breath samples from healthy and lung cancer individuals; control: healty people, LC-AD: adenocarcinoma, LC-NSCLC: non small cell lung cancer, LC-SQCC: squamous cell carcinoma (In the case of NSCLC and SQCC, the data looks different but it located same cluster in LC patients).

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