On November 2, 2021, a group study by the University of Ohio, USA, was published in the prestigious scientific journal PLOS ONE entitled “Detection of exhaled nitrogen monoxide can diagnose patients with severe COVID-19.”
It is a breathalyzer test that diagnoses COVID-19 with relatively high accuracy, although at present it does not appear to be completely comparable in sensitivity to conventional molecular methods for coronavirus detection (for example PCR). ). EKPA Professors Ourania Tsitsiloni, Evangelos Terpos, Ioannis Trougakos and Thanos Dimopoulos (Rector of EKPA) summarize the main features of this new technology.
University of Ohio Medical Center team leader Matthew Exline, a pulmonologist and intensivist, and his colleagues analyzed respiratory samples from approximately 50 patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with severe pneumonia and had to know which of them suffered from COVID-19. They found that patients with COVID-19 active pneumonia had a different pattern of exhaled gases, which they identified with the “respiratory test” they developed. The main exhaled gas at high concentrations was nitric oxide (NO), which, in combination with exhaled oxygen and ammonia, gave patients with severe COVID-19 a characteristic “respiratory footprint”, a change in their concentration curve. which resembles the small Greek letter omega (ω). The diagnosis of COVID-19 was made in just 15 seconds and the accuracy of the method was 88%.
Although this accuracy falls short of FDA-approved diagnostic tests (which are usually close to 99%), this new “breathing test” is fast, inexpensive, and less invasive. In addition, a key advantage is that, unlike molecular tests that may remain positive during recovery, the “respiratory test” is only positive during COVID-19 infection.
At present the “respiratory test” has been tested in patients admitted to the ICU, because the respiratory pattern in these patients could be monitored more intensively and more systematically. The test is expected to be tested soon in patients with milder COVID-19 as well as in asymptomatic individuals.
According to the researchers (who have been trying to develop diagnostic “respiratory tests” for several years before the pandemic), these new technologies are giving very encouraging clinical results, and in the future they will be able to detect other diseases.
Along with the University of Ohio team, many centers around the world are working on similar technologies, although there are still no commercially available tests. In the Netherlands, for example, a rapid “breath test” was launched this year, SpiroNose, where people who may be infected with SARS-CoV-2 breathe in a special device that detects the coronavirus within 1 minute. Positive individuals are then tested with a molecular test. At Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, researchers identified biomarkers in children’s breath that are unique to children with COVID-19. At Rutgers University near New York, a “breathing test” has been developed that diagnoses COVID-19 in 10 minutes and a similar test from two start-ups in Singapore gives the result in 2 minutes.
In addition to the future implementation of similar tests for the diagnosis of other diseases, at present perhaps the most important utility of “respiratory tests” for COVID-19 is the control of individuals in large concentrations and of course the control of the borders of countries.
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