Obstructive sleep apnea patients can be identified by ion mobility spectrometry-derived smell prints of different biological materials

Science and Research

BACKGROUND: The analysis of sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) is time- and cost-intensive. A number of studies demonstrated that the non-invasive analysis of exhaled breath may be suitable to distinguish between OSAS patients and healthy subjects (HS). Methods/Population: We included OSAS patients (n=15) and HS (n=15) in this diagnostic proof-of-concept-study. All participants underwent polygraphy to verify or exclude OSAS and performed spirometry to exclude pulmonary ventilatory diseases. The VOC profile of exhaled breath and of the headspaces over exhaled breath condensate, pharyngeal washing fluid, and serum was measured using ion mobility spectrometry (BioScout(R)) and an e-nose (Cyranose(R) 320). For the statistical analysis, we fitted classification tree models using recursive partitioning, followed by a leave-one-out cross-validation. For the cross-validated predictions we calculated descriptive classification statistics, p-values from a chi^2-test with continuity correction, as well as ROC curves. Results: Using ion mobility spectrometry, OSAS-patients and HS could be distinguished with high accuracy (values ranged from 79% to 97%). The results of the e-nose-derived analyses (with the exception of exhaled breath) were less accurate. However, the cross-validated accuracy for exhaled breath was very good (0,9), reflecting a positive predictive value of 100% and a negative predictive value of 83,3%. For each material, we identified the best five substances that may be used for diagnostic purposes. 2-Methylfluran was found in three different biological materials to be discriminative between OSAS and HS. Conclusion: The results strengthen the hypothesis, that substances detectable in headspace-measurements of different airway and blood materials may undergo a transition from blood into the alveoli (and exhaled breath) or vice versa. This means that substances from different compartments could be used to distinguish patients with airway diseases (in this case OSAS) from healthy controls. .