A new laser breath analyzer could give doctors the ability to quickly detect and monitor diseases, and one local pathologist said the device might revolutionize diagnostics.
Developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the device uses mirrors to bounce lasers off every molecule in a person's exhaled breath.
It can then detect molecular compounds that could indicate the presence of diseases such as asthma and cancer.
The project was developed within JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Ben Stein wrote in the NIST press release for the project that previous efforts were too slow, inaccurate and detected a much smaller number of molecules.
Because of these qualities, detecting the presence of a certain compound didn't necessarily prove a patient had a certain disease.
"To be effective, you have to see a lot of [molecules] at once," Stein said.
This is done through the use of frequency combs. Frequency combs are ultra-short pulses of light that all originate from one source.
By analyzing light absorption, frequency combs are able to efficiently detect as many as 1,000 compounds in someone's breath.
"It's always important to look at anything that is less invasive to a patient," said Dr. Gordon C. Handte, a pathologist at Mount Nittany Medical Center and J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital.
Handte emphasized the importance of convenience for medical tests and detection, saying there will probably be more patient-friendly devices in the future. He added that a lot of research is conducted every year to find simpler and easier forms of testing.
"If you think about it, it's common to look at certain genetic markers for diseases, so it's not surprising that you can try something similar by analyzing someone's breath," Handte said. "I don't think the technology is going to have a big impact for a while, but eventually, it will."
Michael Thorpe, one of the main researchers on the project, said only two diseases have been FDA-approved for discovery through the laser. Asthma has been linked to breathing out nitric oxide, and septic ulcers have been linked to exhaling high levels of carbon dioxide, he said.
Calling the technology a "young field," Thorpe added that other relationships between exhaled compounds and diseases are being researched.
Possibilities include the link between ammonia and kidney failure, acetone and diabetes, and ethane and cancer.
In an experiment where student volunteers breathed into the laser, one student smoker was found to have five times as much carbon monoxide in his breath as a nonsmoker.
Dr. Jun Ye, the leader of the research team, told Stein that using the laser to analyze someone's breath is "like seeing the trees and the entire forest at the same time."
