Breath Test Can Detect Illness

A new test that detects free radicals released in an exhalation of breath can determine whether patients with heart transplants are showing signs of rejecting the new heart. The test, called Heartsbreath, has been cleared for this use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The test is noninvasive and has no risks. The FDA said it might be used as an adjunct to biopsy. Menssana Research at the Enterprise Development Center, New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, USA), is commercializing the technology. In November 2004, the company was named second runner-up in the biotechnology and medical section of the annual technology innovation awards of The Wall Street Journal.

In a patented process, breath samples are imbedded in activated carbon, sealed in cigarette-sized steel cylinders and mailed to the laboratory for analysis. Menssana has identified distinct patterns made by more than 200 different volatiles organic compounds exhaled in every breath. These patterns vary with illness and can be used to diagnose a variety of diseases.

"Diabetics' breath smells fruity because of acetones, patients in kidney failure have breath that smells like urine, and liver disease and lung infections also have distinctive odors,” explained the inventor, Michael Phillips, M.D., clinical professor of medicine at New York Medical College (Vahalla, NY, USA).

The principle behind Dr. Phillips' research is oxidative stress. Disease is associated with an increase in free radicals, which damage the cell membrane, releasing the volatile organic compounds, some of which are ultimately exhaled. Dr. Phillips found a way to use activated charcoal to capture these compounds, concentrate them with intense heat, and then use gas chromatography to separate the compounds and mass spectrometry to identify them.

"It's completely safe, has virtually no false-negative results, and it's cheap,” Dr. Phillips added.




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