title: An electronic nose discriminates exhaled breath of patients with untreated pulmonary sarcoidosis from controls.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Sarcoidosis is a systemic granulomatous disease of unknown cause that affects the lungs in over 90% of cases. Breath analysis by electronic nose technology provides exhaled molecular profiles that have potential in the diagnosis of several respiratory diseases.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We hypothesized that exhaled molecular profiling may distinguish well-characterized patients with sarcoidosis from controls. To that end we performed electronic nose measurements in untreated and treated sarcoidosis patients and in healthy controls.
  
  
  METHODS
  31 sarcoidosis patients (11 patients with untreated pulmonary sarcoidosis [age: 48.4 ± 9.0], 20 patients with treated pulmonary sarcoidosis [age: 49.7 ± 7.9]) and 25 healthy controls (age: 39.6 ± 14.1) participated in a cross-sectional study. Exhaled breath was collected twice using a Tedlar bag by a standardized method. Both bags were then sampled by an electronic nose (Cyranose C320), resulting in duplicate data. Statistical analysis on sensor responses was performed off-line by principal components (PC) analyses, discriminant analysis and ROC curves.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Breathprints from patients with untreated pulmonary sarcoidosis were discriminated from healthy controls (CVA: 83.3%; AUC 0.825). Repeated measurements confirmed those results. Patients with untreated and treated sarcoidosis could be less well discriminated (CVA 74.2%), whereas the treated sarcoidosis group was undistinguishable from controls (CVA 66.7%)
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Untreated patients with active sarcoidosis can be discriminated from healthy controls. This suggests that exhaled breath analysis has potential for diagnosis and/or monitoring of sarcoidosis.
authors: Department of Respiratory Medicine, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. sdragonieri@hotmail.com
authors: Silvano
authors: S
authors: Dragonieri
authors: Paul
authors: P
authors: Brinkman
authors: Evert
authors: E
authors: Mouw
authors: Aeilko H
authors: AH
authors: Zwinderman
authors: Pierluigi
authors: P
authors: Carratú
authors: Onofrio
authors: O
authors: Resta
authors: Peter J
authors: PJ
authors: Sterk
authors: Rene E
authors: RE
authors: Jonkers
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D001944:Breath Tests / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D062609:Electronic Nose; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017565:Sarcoidosis, Pulmonary / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers