Breath-based non-invasive diagnosis of Alzheimer ’s disease: a pilot study
Early detection of Alzheimer ’s disease (AD) will help researchers to better understand the disease
and develop improved treatments. Recent developments have thus focused on identifying biomarkers for
mild cognitive impairment due to AD (MCI) and AD during the preclinical phase. The aim of this pilot
study is to determine whether exhaled volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can be used as a
non-invasive method to distinguish controls from MCI, controls from AD and to determine whether
there are differences between MCI and AD. The study used gas chromatography —ion mobility
spectrometry (GC-IMS) techniques. Confounding factors, such as age, smoking habits, gender and
alcohol consumption are investigated to demonstrate the efficacy of results. One hundred subjects
were recruited including 50 controls, 25 AD and 25 MCI patients. The subject cohort was age- and
gender-matched to minimise bias. Breath samples were analysed using a commercial GC-IMS instrument
(G.A.S. BreathSpec, Dortmund,...
Source: Journal of Breath Research - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Akira Tiele, Alfian Wicaksono, Emma Daulton, Emmanuel Ifeachor, Victoria Eyre, Sophie Clarke, Leanne Timings, Stephen Pearson, James A Covington and Xinzhong Li Source Type: research