Open access
Date
2021-09Type
- Journal Article
Abstract
Background and objectives
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is an underdiagnosed respiratory disease with negative metabolic and cardiovascular effects. The current gold standard for diagnosing OSA is in-hospital polysomnography, a time-consuming and costly procedure, often inconvenient for the patient. Recent studies revealed evidence for the potential of breath analysis for the diagnosis of OSA based on a disease-specific metabolic pattern. However, none of these findings were validated in a larger and broader cohort, an essential step for its application in clinics.
Methods
In the present study, we validated a panel of breath biomarkers in a cohort of patients with possible OSA (N = 149). These markers were previously identified in our group by secondary electrospray ionization high-resolution mass spectrometry (SESI-HRMS).
Results
Here, we could confirm significant differences between metabolic patterns in exhaled breath from OSA patients compared to control subjects without OSA as well as the association of breath biomarker levels with disease severity. Our prediction of the diagnosis for the patients from this completely independent validation study using a classification model trained on the data from the previous study resulted in an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.66, which is comparable to questionnaire-based OSA screenings.
Conclusions
Thus, our results suggest that breath analysis by SESI-HRMS might be useful to screen for OSA as an objective measure. However, its true predictive power should be tested in combination with OSA screening questionnaires.
Clinical trial
“Mass Spectral Fingerprinting in Obstructive Sleep Apnoea”, NCT02810158, www.ClinicalTrials.gov. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000498281Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Sleep MedicineVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
ElsevierSubject
Obstructive sleep apnea; Biomarkers; Validation study; Breath analysis; Metabolomics; Secondary electrospray ionization mass spectrometryOrganisational unit
03430 - Zenobi, Renato / Zenobi, Renato
Related publications and datasets
Is supplemented by: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000456155
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