Every breath you take – using breath monitoring for liver & kidney disease

Researchers at the BDI have developed a novel breath monitoring device that allows the user to measure the concentration of ammonia in their breath.  Ammonia is an important indicator of both liver and kidney function.  However, breath ammonia monitoring is not common due primarily to the cost and complexity of current instruments used for its detection.

The BDI has developed a low-cost prototype sensor that can be used routinely in a clinical environment and has the potential to be deployed in the home. The device makes use of a disposable sensor element based on patent-pending DCU technology, which can be produced at a very low-cost (<€1) and in high volumes using ink-jet printing.

The sensor has already been shown to perform on a par with the more complex systems used to measure ammonia and, importantly, preliminary clinical evaluations have shown that the ammonia measurements recorded for a patient on haemodialysis (treatment for renal failure) correlate extremely well with the standard blood-based measurements that are performed to analyse the efficiency of haemodialysis.

In addition to being more broadly applicable to patient management in the areas of kidney and liver dysfunction, results such as this pave the way for home-based monitoring of haemodialysis. The ability to monitor illnesses such as chronic kidney disease through the use of a home-based breath test has the potential to transform patient care and provide significant reductions in healthcare costs.