They approve a machine that can diagnose COVID-19 by analyzing the smell

Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for emergency use, the first breath test to diagnose COVID-19. The device, called InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer analyzes the breath of a supposedly infected person and in three minutes gives the result, indicating if they have the disease. Today we will review the rationale for that test and its application in other fields of medicine.

the smell of health

In the animal world, odors are very important for the survival of the species. They are guided by them in their sexual life, to get their food, detect poisonous substances in the environment and distinguish between related and enemy species.

Similarly, human beings constantly emit many types of odors, be it through breath, sweat, urine, feces, semen, and other secretions.

The interesting thing is that these odors are capable of reflecting the disease state of a person, so they can be considered as if they were fingerprints.

Since ancient times it has been known that some diseases have a particular smell. The ancient doctors Hippocrates, Galen and Paracelsus already recognized the diagnostic use of body odors and since then medicine has used smell to diagnose diseases.

For example, in his decompensated stage (diabetic coma), a patient smells like green apples; the yellow fever it smells like a butcher shop; liver failure eat raw fish; and typhoid fever like fresh wholemeal bread.

Despite the instinctive usefulness of body odors, it is only in recent years that research has been encouraged to use body odors in diagnosing disease, noting some clinical trials designed to have dogs aid in cancer diagnosis lung, prostate and breast.

“The great advantage of this new diagnostic method is that thousands of nasal swabs for PCR tests will be saved.”

studies in newly born Preterm infants have shown that breath analysis would help diagnose septicemia and serious intestinal infections three and four days before clinical diagnosis, respectively. Volatile organic compound (VOC) analysis has also been able to distinguish breastfed from formula-fed preterm infants in the first month of life.

Just as breath analysis can diagnose diseases of the body, it is surprising that some mental health disorders can be diagnosed with VOC analysis.

It has been investigated whether people with schizophrenia could eliminate specific substances in the sweat and some experiments indicate that the stressed mice they can excrete distinctive odours.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)

The reason why organisms emit odors is because the cells are capable of releasing microscopic chemical particles called VOCs, which diffuse into the air and can be perceived by the smell of other living beings.

VOCs emitted by different areas of the human body vary depending on a person’s age, diet, gender, physiological state, and possibly genetic background.

The technology that makes it possible to identify the different VOCs is gas chromatography/gas mass spectrometry (GC/MS), which separates and identifies the chemical compounds in the sample.

breath analyzer

It is easier to understand the device recently approved by the FDA, since the person with COVID-19 it also emits specific VOCs, so it is possible to identify them and diagnose the disease. Using GC/MS, the InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer separates and identifies five VOCs associated with COVID-19.

According to the FDA, The carry-on size InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer will come in handy in doctor’s offices, hospitals and outpatient testing sites, providing results in less than three minutes.

The approval was based on a large study of 2,409 people with and without symptoms of COVID-19, which showed that the test was able to correctly identify 91.2% of people with COVID-19 proven (sensitivity) and 99.3% of people who did not have COVID-19 (specificity).

This means that, in geographical areas with a very low presence of the infection, and thanks to its very high specificity, a negative test with the InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer should be considered as such and the person can go home knowing that they do not have the disease. disease, while a positive case will have to have a nasal swab for a verification PCR test.

The great advantage of this new diagnostic method is that thousands of nasal swabs for PCR tests will be saved, since only those who are positive in the breath test will have to have it done to verify the infection. According to the FDA, the test was able to detect cases caused by omicron.

Corollary

It is not then that this new breath test is capable of detecting the virus SARS-CoV-2what it does –just like the breathalyzer– is to detect the characteristic chemical compounds of the COVID-19.

Two studies are already under way to use the analysis of volatile organic compounds in the diagnosis of cancer of the lungs and of motherand one recent topic reviewin which dozens of studies were analyzed, concluded that the analysis of VOCs has enormous potential in the fight against cancer.