2 minute read
Developing breath analysis into a rapid diagnostic
A lot can happen in a year and a half. In the world of healthcare analytics, disease screening and medical diagnostics, familiarity with test details and interpretation of the results of these tests, which was previously the realm of medical professionals, has become part of everyday household terminology amongst the general public. The pandemic has underlined the need for accurate, easily accessible and rapid diagnostic tests to generate maximum protection for patients and society more broadly. This is precisely where breath analysis, using a combination of gas chromatography and ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) technology, comes into its own.
We reported last year on how Imspex Diagnostics’ GC-IMS BreathSpec technology was being trialled for its ability to detect coronavirus. The findings of this multicentre feasibility study were published in the Lancet eClinicalMedicine in October last year. BreathSpec distinguished between patients with COVID-19 and those with other respiratory conditions, and results continue to be validated at multiple sites. A large Horizon2020 study, completed in the last year, similarly showed that BreathSpec could also differentiate between patients with acute respiratory infections caused by bacteria as opposed to those caused by viruses. This offers a promising platform which could be used to guide prescription of appropriate treatments for people with respiratory infections, and Imspex is continuing to add to the breath profile database for this application.
An urgent need for rapid diagnostics to fight antimicrobial resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been described as both the “next pandemic” and the “silent pandemic”. In 2016, the O’Neill Review on Antimicrobial Resistance recommended that rapid diagnostics should be developed and used as a matter of urgency to identify infectious disease agents and to guide prescription of the most appropriate treatment for each specific causal agent. Five years later, this recommendation has yet to be broadly taken up.
Doctors are in a difficult position
A large proportion of patients that come to GP surgeries present with a respiratory infection. Doctors currently have no reliable on-the-spot way of being able to determine whether this infection is caused by a bacteria or a virus. This puts them in the position of having to consider prescribing antibiotics, where they would otherwise not do so if they could verify that the causal agent was a virus. This is a gap that breath analysis and more specifically BreathSpec would be perfectly suited to fill. Breath as a non-invasive, rapid diagnostic
Breath has long been viewed as a desirable source of information on which to judge a body’s state of health. As far back as Hippocrates’ time, people noted that unique odours were linked to certain diseases. Until now, however, neither state-of-the-art technology nor the knowledge base around metabolomics of volatile organic compounds has been sufficiently well developed to detect and recognise breath profiles accurately and reliably. This is now changing with technology combinations, data science advances and growing breath profile databases. The momentum that breath analysis continues to gain makes it a strong contender for use to detect and/or contribute to earlier diagnoses of both infectious diseases, including respiratory tract infections, and non-communicable diseases.
Taking breath analysis to patients
Imspex Diagnostics has recognised this opportunity and has taken several steps to meet this need. We are continuing to collect data with multiple global partners to build up breath profile databases. Over the past year, Imspex Diagnostics has also set up Imspex Medical as a specific internal division of the company to take breath analysis to patients at their point-of-care. This will definitely be a space to watch.
