Abstract
Background: Numerous studies have shown the diagnostic potential of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) pattern analysis by the electronic nose in several pulmonary and systemic diseases. Before validating enose technology as diagnostic tool a number of methodological issues still need to be clarified. It has been demonstrated that with increasing age in healthy controls, the composition of exhaled air with respect to several VOCs analyzed by GC-MS changes (Philips et al. JLCM 2000). Moreover an increase of induced sputum neutrophils have been shown in aging (Thomas et al. Chest 2004)
Aim: We aimed to investigate the effects of age on exhaled breath VOCs-profile analyzed by an electronic nose in a healthy adult population.
Methods: 32 healthy never smoking adults participated to a cross-sectional study. We divided our population into two groups according to their age. Group 0 consisted of 16 individuals older than 50 years. Group 1 was composed by 16 subjects younger than 50 years. Exhaled breath was collected by a previously validated method (Dragonieri JACI 2007) and sampled by the electronic nose (Cyranose 320). Breathprints were analyzed by canonical discriminant analysis (CDA) on principal component reduction (PCA). Cross-validation accuracy% (CVA%) was calculated.
Results: PCA plot showed that older subjects could not be distinguished from younger individuals. CDA was then performed on the data and showed a CVA% of 56.3
Conclusions: Age seems not to affect the overall profile as measured by electronic nose. Further studies with larger population are required to confirm our findings and to investigate of other possible confounding factors, such as sex, pregnancy, medication and diet.
- Copyright ©ERS 2015
