'Electronic nose' helps detect asthma

Dutch experts say a device called an electronic nose (Enose) can help detect the difference in breathing of people with asthma and people without asthma, and thus have the ability to assist diagnose this disease.

However, this ' sniffing device ' is still in its early stages of development and has not effectively differentiated the severity of asthma or mild asthma.

The author of the study, Dr Silvano Dragonieri of the Leiden University Medical Center, said: 'Our electronic nose can distinguish between people with mild and severe asthma and healthy people at a level. pretty good distinction. However, the ability to distinguish between mild asthma and severe asthma is weaker. ' If more research is confirmed by other studies, 'electronic nose technology could be a non-invasive, quick, inexpensive and easy-to-manipulate (diagnostic) method,' he added.

Narrow airway in asthma (Photo: Diseases-explained.com)

Dr. Dragonieri presented this invention at the International Association of American Thoracic Society held in San Francisco.

Currently, doctors rely heavily on symptoms and measure lung function to diagnose asthma. According to Clifford Bassett, an asthma and allergist doctor and a clinical lecturer at New York University medical school, asthma symptoms include coughing, shortness of breath, wheezing, and feeling. tension in the chest.

The problem is that other diseases such as bronchitis, sinusitis, and too much passive smoking also have similar signs and symptoms. Therefore, the diagnosis of this disease is not always simple.

When talking about the potential of this new device, Dr. Bassett said: 'Asthma is a common and treatable disease, but it is also a disease that can be life threatening. The important thing is that doctors can do their job better in any way to classify high risk asthma patients. '

The electronic nose detects asthma through chemical vapor sensors by finding chemicals called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the out-breath.

Dr Dragonieri said: 'Human breath is a mixture containing thousands of volatile organic compounds and they can be used as markers of lung disease.' Tools like electronic noses have been used in the food, alcohol and aromatherapy industries, and they can detect explosives or toxic chemicals, making this technology useful in the future. war on terror. '

In addition to an electronic nose study in asthma diagnosis, this technology is also being investigated to evaluate its usefulness in detecting lung cancer.

Researchers explain: Everyone has a unique ' characteristic smell ' that the device can distinguish. In order to assess the effectiveness of electronic nose in the correct diagnosis of asthma, Dr. Dragonieri's team compared the characteristic odor of 20 people with asthma including 10 people with mild airway disease and 10 people with severe airway disease, with a characteristic smell of 20 healthy volunteers.

This device distinguishes people with asthma from people who do not have asthma up to 95% effective, but when it comes to distinguishing between mild asthma and severe asthma, it is only 65% ​​effective.

Dr. Dragonieri explains: 'There are several reasons why this device is not sensitive to detecting differences between asthma levels, but we only speculate. It may be due to volatile organic compounds, regardless of severe illness or mild illness, so changes in volatile organic compounds spectrum are noticeable between healthy people and asthma sufferers. , and this change becomes less clear between people with mild asthma and people with severe asthma. '

He added: 'The electronic nose technology is still in its infancy. It can become a useful diagnostic tool, but there are still many more steps to be taken before this method is confirmed. '

Linh Anh