Measuring Compounds in Exhaled Air to Detect Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

BackgroundAlzheimer’s disease (AD) is diagnosed based upon medical history, neuropsychiatric examination, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, extensive laboratory analyses and cerebral imaging. Diagnosis is time consuming and labour intensive. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is mainly diagnosed on clinical grounds.ObjectiveThe primary aim of this study was to differentiate patients suffering from AD, PD and healthy controls by investigating exhaled air with the electronic nose technique. After demonstrating a difference between the three groups the secondary aim was the identification of specific substances responsible for the difference(s) using ion mobility spectroscopy. Thirdly we analysed whether amyloid beta (Aβ) in exhaled breath was causative for the observed differences between patients suffering from AD and healthy controls.MethodsWe employed novel pulmonary diagnostic tools (electronic nose device/ion-mobility spectrometry) for the identification of patients with neurodegenerative diseases. Specifically, we analysed breath pattern differences in exhaled air of patients with AD, those with PD and healthy controls using the electronic nose device (eNose). Using ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), we identified the compounds responsible for the observed differences in breath patterns. We applied ELISA technique to measure Aβ in exhaled breath condensates.ResultsThe eNose was able to differentiate between AD, PD and HC correctly. Using IMS, we identified markers that could be used to differentiate healthy controls from patients with AD and PD with an accuracy of 94%. In addition, patients suffering from PD were identified with sensitivity and specificity of 100%. Altogether, 3 AD patients out of 53 participants were misclassified. Although we found Aβ in exhaled breath condensate from both AD and healthy controls, no significant differences between groups were detected.ConclusionThese data may open a new field in the diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Further research is required to evaluate the significance of these pulmonary findings with respect to the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative disorders.

Breathprinting and Early Diagnosis of Lung Cancer

“…44 E-nose technology has been successfully used to distinguish patients with several neurologic and mental disorders from controls. 35,[45][46][47][48] Experience from patients with nonmalignant conditions has emphasized the potentially significant impact of age, gender, and comorbidities on the reproducibility of e-nose measurements to facilitate an unconfounded estimation of cancer-related breathprint. 49,50 In this setting, e-nose technology might also surrogate spirometry in people who are unable to comply with the rigorous procedural standards of spirometry.…”

Clinical Metabolomics: The New Metabolic Window for Inborn Errors of Metabolism Investigations in the Post-Genomic Era

“…Compared with intact or extracted tissues, urine and serum or plasma are the most commonly studied biofluids in clinical practice, because they are easily obtained and prepared [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. However, other specialized fluids could be used, including cerebrospinal fluid [ 40 , 41 ] or saliva [ 42 , 43 , 44 ] and even breath [ 45 , 46 ]. Dried blood (and other biofluids) spots samples (DBS) have also been investigated [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ] and were shown to be an interesting alternative to conventional liquid samples for generating metabolite profiles.…”

Ion Mobility in Clinical Analysis: Current Progress and Future Perspectives

“…In the last decade, research applications of breath analysis by IMS have included further investigation of sarcoidosis (22 ), lung cancer (23 ), airway inflammation/asthma (24 ), polychondritis (25 ), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (26 ). Furthermore, other diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson disease (27 ) and chemotherapyinduced neutropenia (28 ) have shown the capabilities of breath analysis for a more global investigation of the overall metabolome. Recent advances have aimed to take advantage of these benefits for the potential translation of ion mobility methods into the clinical laboratory (29 ).…”