Pediatric Breathalyzer Identifies Disease by Analyzing Exhalations

A novel breath-testing device aids early stage diagnostics and therapy response in both adults and child asthma patients.

The Respiration Collector for In Vitro Analysis (ReCIVA) device is designed to accurately and selectively detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in breath that have been shown to correlate to inflammatory subtype in asthma, and can thus help guide better treatment decisions. ReCIVA is used in combination with the proprietary field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometer (FAIMS) sensor platform, a technology that can be programmed in software to detect targeted biomarkers of disease not only in breath, but in bodily fluids as well.


FAIMS can be also used in clinical diagnostics and precision medicine, with applications both in cancer and in a wide range of other medical conditions. The highly sensitive and selective tests allow for early diagnosis when treatment is more effective, resulting in more lives saved. The ReCIVA breathalyzer platform was adapted to a pediatric version intended for children five years of ages and up, offering a completely non-invasive way to test children’s breath.

Both the adult and pediatric versions of the breathalyzer have been implemented in the East Midlands Breathomics Pathology Node (EMBER), a £2.5 million project with the primary aims being development of breath-based systems for molecular pathology of disease, and clinically validating breathomics as a viable diagnostic modality. The ReCIVA breathalyzer is a product of Owlstone Medical (Cambridge, United Kingdom), and has received the European Community CE mark of approval.

“Breath analysis presents a significant opportunity to better predict how a child will respond to certain treatments, including steroids and expensive biologics,” said Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO of Owlstone Medical. “In developing a pediatric breath sampler we are expanding the scope of projects such as EMBER to include children as an important group in the study of asthma, and more generally extending other biomarker and discovery studies using breath.”

“Choosing the right treatment for the right patient is especially challenging in children, as obtaining samples such as blood to measure disease activity can be difficult,” said professor of respiratory medicine Chris Brightling, PhD, of the University of Leicester (United Kingdom) and EMBER. “Breath analysis offers an excellent opportunity to sample the airway by simply breathing into a mask. This presents a new approach to understand disease and make better treatment decisions.”

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