Electronic-nose applications in clinical use

What is it about?

Electronic nose (e-nose) devices are relatively new gas-detection technologies adapted for use as medical tools for various clinical applications. These small, simple and portable devices are particularly useful for the noninvasive early detection of human diseases. A major advantage of using e-noses, such as for disease diagnoses by human breath analysis, is that they provide quicker, more efficient diagnostic results and cause less stress, anxiety, and are painless to patients. This review article provides a brief summary of recent progress in the development of e-nose applications and technologies for clinical examinations, general medical practice, and for other branches of medical science and research.

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Why is it important?

Conventional methods and monitoring technologies utilized for clinical diagnostics are very expensive, time-consuming, and often result in delays in diagnoses and treatments for human diseases. Electronic-nose devices are not yet been widely used in clinical practice, but significant progress is currently underway as evident by the numerous examples of e-nose clinical research trials presented in this review. The benefits of early detection using e-noses, allowing early treatments of diseases, are obvious as prognoses are greatly improved. Many patients often avoid regular prophylactic checkups and early disease screenings because many current methods (eg, colonoscopies, X-ray mammographies, tissue biopsies, uterine dilation, and curettage) still involve invasive, painful, or expensive procedures. Many of these methods present risks of significant negative side effects and often are sufficiently painful to discourage patients from participating in preemptive, prophylactic disease-screening procedures. Hence, there is an increasing urgent need for the development of new efficient, rapid, and relatively cheap diagnostic tools, particularly those such as e-noses that reliably detect diseases at early stages of development.

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