Volatile organic compounds as exhaled biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress in respiratory diseases

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademic

Abstract

In ancient times, physicians already valued human breath as a window of diseased and healthy organs. For instance, advanced liver disease was indicated by the fishy smell of a patient’s breath. Hundreds of volatile organic compounds (vocs) are produced in different organs and are transported by blood to the lungs where they are released. Inflammatory and deviant metabolic processes change the composition of the vocs and therefore they can be used for clinical diagnosis and disease monitoring. The total amount of vocs (volatome) in exhaled breath can be detected based on gas chromatography–mass spectrometry-based methods and combined with chemometric analysis in selecting those compounds containing the relevant information about the disease state. The profiles of excreted vocs from healthy and diseased persons are numerically very complex and the biological and environmental variations are usually very large. The challenge is to extract the relevant information from the large amount of data and to relate subsets or profiles of vocs to the disease with predictive and diagnostic power.in this overview, applications are focussed on using vocs analysis in monitoring inflammatory conditions concerning the pulmonary tract. Available methodologies regarding sampling, sample analysis, and data processing as well as their advantages and potential drawbacks are discussed.keywordschronic obstructive pulmonary diseaseidiopathic pulmonary fibrosisdynamic time warpingpartial little square discriminant analysiselectronic nosethese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationStudies on Respiratory Disorders
EditorsN.K. Ganguly, S.K. Jindal, S. Biswal, P.J. Barnes, R. Pawankar
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherSpringer
Pages67-84
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2014

Publication series

SeriesOxidative Stress in Applied Basic Research and Clinical Practice

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