Urea breath testing and analysis in the primary care office.
The 13C-urea breath test provides accurate, noninvasive diagnosis of active Helicobacter pylori infection and can document posttherapy cure. This study evaluated point-of-care testing with onsite sample analysis with the use of a desktop infrared spectrophotometer. Ambulatory patients (N=320) underwent 13C-urea breath testing, and breath samples were analyzed immediately by clinic staff with no prior breath testing experience. Duplicate samples were sent to a reference laboratory, and the results of both methods were compared. Point-of-care testing was simple, with an overall agreement of 99.1%. Accurate near-patient 13C-urea breath testing is now practical in the primary care setting even when done by inexperienced personnel.
Opekun
Antone R
AR
Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA. aopekun@bcm.tmc.edu
Abdalla
Nageeb
N
Sutton
Fred M
FM
Hammoud
Fadi
F
Kuo
Grace M
GM
Torres
Elizabeth
E
Steinbauer
Jeffrey
J
Graham
David Y
DY
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001944:Breath Tests / Q000379:methods*; D002247:Carbon Isotopes; D016481:Helicobacter Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016480:Helicobacter pylori; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009819:Office Visits; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013055:Spectrophotometry, Infrared; D014508:Urea
D002247:Carbon Isotopes; D014508:Urea