This is something from the future when people read the headlines as A
Disease Breathalyzer, which sounds something which could be still in its
concept stages. But it is not, as Owlstone Medical has found this
mighty useful product. Owlstone Medical was into this research for a few years
into conceptualizing and creating the Breath Biopsy.
Close to billions would be saved on diagnosis expenditure because these
devices could save many thousand people around the world in the healthcare
industry. The device diagnoses cancer, inflammatory diseases and other
infectious diseases with precision with just a single breath.
At present Owlstone Medical are also developing tests to help diagnose
lung and colorectal cancer which are considered as the killers when it comes to
cancer and is running on trials with the NHS and Cancer
Research UK. The company also supplies Breath Biopsy products
and services to academic, clinical and pharma partners who want to develop
breath-based diagnostics for their applications.
The Important
Challenges
The Breath Biopsy is a super innovation which combines
technology and medical science. The most crucial challenge Owlstone Medical
faced is that since everyone’s breath is different, the device must analyze the
difference in their breath and identify whether there are actual changes in the
body. Since the VOCs create an electric current in the breathalyzer, collecting
a lot of data infused with medical excellence is very much mandatory to develop
a device providing accurate information of the disease present in the body.
Breath Biopsy Conceptualization
When a foreign substance enters our body which affects the health of the
body, there would be some definitive changes in the human’s metabolism. The
entire metabolism is changed because of alteration in the patterns of volatile
metabolites exhaled through the patient’s breath is diagnosed just with a
single breath through the disease breathalyzer.
The complex changes because of the chemical transformation that happens
in the system take place within the cells of the living organism and sustain
life called as metabolism. A countless amount of small and
intermediate molecules present in the organisms are known as metabolites.
The metabolites are present in all living systems, the biochemical name
for metabolites are called metabolome. Any changes in the human body can be
seen in the metabolome making it an essential marker for diseases. The
metabolites are the substance which gives precise information about the
different changes in different conditions in the human body.
Construction
The breathalyzer consists of two Nano layers, one of them is made up of
carbon, and the other is not. The non-carbon layer contains modified gold
nanoparticles and a series of nanotubes both capable of conducting electricity.
The carbon Nano layer is the sensing layer which analyzes the VOCs
mentioned earlier. The first working of the breathalyzer is to determine which
VOCs were present by measuring the resistance.
How does the Breath Biopsy Diagnose
The breath analyzer collects non-invasive metabolites and analyses
immediately of the volatile fraction of metabolites from the patient’s breath.
If there are a real amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), it immediately
shows in the biochemical activity and also in the cells and tissues of the
human body. The VOCs also contain specific biomarkers which are very much to
characterize different disease processes and define an accurate treatment that
must be followed for the patient.
When the diffusion of metabolic volatiles takes place in the blood which
is later made to the lungs through the air, the air exhaled exhibits VOCs from
the human system in the local airways tissue. The breath biopsy would be fast
in analyzing the threat in the human body because it is very much sensitive to
pulmonary conditions like asthma, COPD, lung cancer and different
other problems in the body.
The product is almost complete of its research and would be ready for
deployment anytime soon. The entire world would be consuming a disease
breathalyzer to diagnose every critical disease that would allow patients to
save a lot on diagnosis in the nearby future.
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