Breath diagnostics

Breath diagnostics involves the analysis of a sample of human breath to monitor, diagnose, and detect diseases and conditions. Besides its primary constituents – nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapour – exhaled human breath contains over one thousand other compounds at trace levels. Many of these species are formed as the by-products of metabolic processes and can be indicative of a number of different diseases and conditions. Examples of such biomarkers are outlined below:

Acetone - Diabetes mellitus Ammonia - Renal Disease Hydrogen Sulfide - Liver Cirrhosis Methane - Colonic Fermentation