Novel noninvasive identification of biomarkers by analytical profiling of chronic wounds using volatile organic compounds

Abstract

A complex profile of volatile organic compounds ("VOC"s) emanates from human skin, which is altered by changes in the body's metabolic or hormonal state, the external environment, and the bacterial species colonizing the skin surface. The aim of this study was to compare VOC profiles sampled from chronic leg wounds with those from asymptomatic skin. Five participants with chronic arterial leg ulcers were selected. VOC samples were obtained using polydimethylsilicone membranes ("skin-patch method") and analyzed by gas chromatography-ion trap mass spectrometry. Resultant data were analyzed using multivariate analysis and mass spectral matches were compared against the National Institute of Standards and Technology database. Principal component analysis showed differences in profiles obtained from healthy skin and boundary areas and between profiles from healthy skin and lesion samples (p<0.05). Partial least squares for discriminant analysis gave an average prediction accuracy of 73.3% (p<0.05). Mass spectral matching (verified against microbial swab results) identified unique VOCs associated with each sample area, wound bacterial colonization, and ingested medications. This study showcases a reproducible, robust, noninvasive methodology that is applicable in a clinical setting and may offer a new, hitherto unexplored, class of biochemical markers underpinning the metabolism of chronic wounds.

High throughput volatile fatty acid skin metabolite profiling by thermal desorption secondary electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry

“…Studies of skin VOC profiles have identified mosquito attractants [11][12] and monitored fragrance release [9][10]. Compounds associated with chronic wounds [18] as well as signatures differentiating between melanoma, naevi and healthy skin [19] have been reported. Skin profiling has also been applied to ammonia monitoring; non-invasive headspace capture of ammonia from skin enabled such an approach to be compared against blood gas levels.…”

Clinical Application of Volatile Organic Compound Analysis for Detecting Infectious Diseases

“…In particular, reportedly, patterns of volatiles released from dressings of chronic wounds can be used to monitor the progress of wound healing (129). A recent study emphasized the usefulness of a suitable sampling procedure regarding wounds and showed that multivariate data analysis of VOC profiles obtained by GC-MS could discriminate infected chronic wounds from healthy skin (130).…”

A novel sensor array and classifier optimization method of electronic nose based on enhanced quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization

“…Previous work (Byun et al, 2010;Thomas et al, 2010;Tian et al, 2009;Dutta and Dutta, 2006) has confirmed that it is feasible for E-nose to detect the pathogens including investigation of bacterial volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from culture medium and swabs taken from wound. Wound-monitoring based on E-nose has its own potential advantages such as low cost, simple operation procedure, suitable for rapid non-invasive detection, etc., so E-nose is used to distinguish the classes of wound infection in our laboratory.…”