Determination of volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath of heart failure patients by needle trap micro-extraction coupled with gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

The analytical performances of needle trap micro-extraction (NTME) coupled with gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry were evaluated by analyzing a mixture of twenty-two representative breath volatile organic compounds (VOCs) belonging to different chemical classes (i.e. hydrocarbons, ketones, aldehydes, aromatics and sulfurs). NTME is an emerging technique that guarantees detection limits in the pptv range by pre-concentrating low volumes of sample, and it is particularly suitable for breath analysis. For most VOCs, detection limits between 20 and 500 pptv were obtained by pre-concentrating 25 ml of a humidified standard gas mixture at a flow rate of 15 ml min. For all compounds, inter- and intra-day precisions were always below 15%, confirming the reliability of the method. The procedure was successfully applied to the analysis of exhaled breath samples collected from forty heart failure (HF) patients during their stay in the University Hospital of Pisa. The majority of patients (about 80%) showed a significant decrease of breath acetone levels (a factor of 3 or higher) at discharge compared to admission (acute phase) in correspondence to the improved clinical conditions during hospitalization, thus making this compound eligible as a biomarker of HF exacerbation.

The Potential Benefits of Therapeutic Treatment Using Gaseous Terpenes at Ambient Low Levels

“…The test mixture of the MTs generated from the permeation system was also analyzed to determine their real concentrations and compositions using a gas chromatograph (6890, Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA) coupled with a mass-selective detector (5975, Agilent Technologies, USA) as reported elsewhere [30]. To pretreat the sample gas, an adsorption tube trap [30,31] or absorption needle trap [32] can be employed. In this study, MTs samples were collected by an adsorption tube trap made of 110 mg of Tenax TA (60/80 mesh, Sigma-Aldrich Inc., Louis, MO, USA) and 100 mg of Carbotrap (20/40 mesh, Supelco, USA).…”

Detection and quantification of exhaled volatile organic compounds in mechanically ventilated patients – comparison of two sampling methods

“…20 Needle trap devices have also been used to trap VOCs. 21,22 Currently there is no consensus regarding the ideal method for bedside breath sampling and transport although the need to develop a strategy to achieve this is widely accepted. 23 Standardization of VOC sampling methods in mechanically ventilated patients remains challenging and is contingent on fully defining sampling systems in terms of their analytical performance, including dynamic range, detection limit, noise and the sensitivity of matrix effects towards ambient changes.…”

Development of a needle trap device packed with titanium‐based metal‐organic framework sorbent for extraction of phenolic derivatives in air

“…Needle trap device (NTD) as a microextraction technique that was first introduced by Pawliszyn et al in 2001 [5]. In recent years, NTD has attracted much scientific interest from many researchers, due to its advantages [6,7]. In this regard, in previous researches, a wide variety of commercial and synthetic adsorbents have been used in NTD for determination of different compounds [8][9][10].…”