Use of the electronic nose to screen for small airway dysfunction in schoolchildren

Autor: Hsiao-Yu Yang, Chi‑Hsiang Huang, Yi-Giien Tsai, Ruei-Hao Shie, Wei-Chi Lin, Chih-Dao Chen
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical. 345:130395
ISSN: 0925-4005
DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2021.130395
Popis: Accurate methods that can be used to detect asymptomatic children with asthma in schools are lacking. Small airway dysfunction is a precursor of asthma. The objective of this study was to use the electronic nose (E-nose) to detect small airway dysfunction in elementary schoolchildren at risk of asthma and evaluate the acute effects of air pollution on respiration. We conducted this study in an elementary school. The study recruited 40 asymptomatic students with a history of asthma and 40 age- and sex-matched children without a history of asthma to take the breath test. We used an E-nose to analyze volatile metabolites and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze common air pollutants in exhaled breath. After excluding eight subjects in pilot tests, we included 72 subjects in the final analysis of the breath test. The sensitivity of detecting small airway dysfunction with the E-nose was 0.92, the specificity was 0.95, the positive predictive value was 0.79, the negative predictive value was 0.98, the overall accuracy was 0.94, and the leave-one-out cross-validation accuracy was 0.74. The area under the curve was 0.98 (95 % confidence interval: 0.96–1.00). Methyl tert-butyl ether was the only ambient air pollutant that had a significant negative correlation with the maximum mid-expiratory flow (r = -0.33, P
Databáze: OpenAIRE