Matching Items (4)
Description
The world of healthcare can be seen as dynamic, often an area where technology and science meet to consummate a greater good for humanity. This relationship has been working well for the last century as evident by the average life expectancy change. For the greater of the last five decades the average life expectancy at birth increased globally by almost 20 years. In the United States specifically, life expectancy has grown from 50 years in 1900 to 78 years in 2009. That is a 76% increase in just over a century. As great as this increase sounds for humanity it means there are soon to be real issues in the healthcare world. A larger older population will need more healthcare services but have fewer young professionals to provide those services. Technology and science will need to continue to push the boundaries in order to develop and provide the solutions needed to continue providing the aging world population sufficient healthcare. One solution sure to help provide a brighter future for healthcare is mobile health (m-health). M-health can help provide a means for healthcare professionals to treat more patients with less work expenditure and do so with more personalized healthcare advice which will lead to better treatments. This paper discusses one area of m-health devices specifically; human breath analysis devices. The current laboratory methods of breath analysis and why these methods are not adequate for common healthcare practices will be discussed in more detail. Then more specifically, mobile breath analysis devices are discussed. The topic will encompass the challenges that need to be met in developing such devices, possible solutions to these challenges, two real examples of mobile breath analysis devices and finally possible future directions for m-health technologies.
ContributorsLester, Bryan (Author) / Forzani, Erica (Thesis advisor) / Xian, Xiaojun (Committee member) / Trimble, Steve (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Coccidioidomycosis, or Valley fever, is an endemic pneumonia of the arid and semi-arid regions of North and South America and is responsible for up to 30% of community-acquired pneumonias in endemic and highly populated areas of the United States southwest. The causative agents of Valley fever are the dimorphic fungi Coccidioides immitis and Coccidioides posadasii, which grow as mycelia in the environment and spherules within the lungs of vulnerable hosts. The current diagnostics for Valley fever are severely lacking due to poor sensitivity and invasiveness, strongly contributing to a 23-day median time-to-diagnosis. There is a critical need for sensitive and non-invasive diagnostics for identifying Valley fever lung infections. The long-term goal of my work is to substantially shorten the time-to-diagnosis for Valley fever through the development of sensitive and specific breath-based diagnostics for coccidioidomycosis lung infections. Herein, I characterized the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by C. immitis and C. posadasii in vitro and evaluated the relationship of the volatile metabolomes to lifecycle. I explored the VOC profiles of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) samples from mouse model lung infections of Valley fever. Finally, I investigated the VOC profiles of BALF from persons with community-acquired pneumonia. All VOCs were analyzed by headspace solid-phase microextraction and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography–time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC×GC-TOFMS). The volatile metabolomes were compared using a variety of statistical analyses. For the in vitro samples, I detected a total of 353 VOCs that were at least two-fold more abundant in a Coccidioides culture versus medium controls and found the volatile metabolome of Coccidioides is more dependent on lifecycle than species. The mouse BALF samples indicate that lung infection VOCs are correlated to cytokine production and classify mice based on their individual level of infection. From the human BALF samples, I identified VOCs that were able to differentiate between Coccidioides and bacterial pneumonia. Combined, these studies suggest that Coccidioides spp. and the host produce volatile metabolites that may yield biomarkers for a Valley fever breath test.
ContributorsHiggins Keppler, Emily (Author) / Bean, Heather D (Thesis advisor) / Barker, Bridget M (Committee member) / Borges, Chad R (Committee member) / Lake, Douglas F (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This work describes the development of a device for measuring CO2 in breath, which has applications in monitoring a variety of health issues, such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma, and cardiovascular disease. The device takes advantage of colorimetric sensing technology in order to maintain a low cost and high user-friendliness. The sensor consists of a pH dye, reactive element, and base coated on a highly porous Teflon membrane. The transmittance of the sensor is measured in the device via a simple LED/photodiode system, along with the flow rate, ambient relative humidity, and barometric pressure. The flow is measured by a newly developed flow meter described in this work, the Confined Pitot Tube (CPT) flow meter, which provides a high accuracy with reduced flow-resistance with a standard differential pressure transducer. I demonstrate in this work that the system has a high sensitivity, high specificity, fast time-response, high reproducibility, and good stability. The sensor has a simple calibration method which requires no action by the user, and utilizes a sophisticated, yet lightweight, model in order to predict temperature changes on the sensor during breathing and track changes in water content. It is shown to be effective for measuring CO2 waveform parameters on a breath-by-breath basis, such as End-Tidal CO2, Alveolar Plateau Slope, and Beginning Exhalation Slope.
ContributorsBridgeman, Devon (Author) / Forzani, Erica S (Thesis advisor) / Nikkhah, Mehdi (Committee member) / Holloway, Julianne (Committee member) / Raupp, Gregory (Committee member) / Emady, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Non-invasive biosensors enable rapid, real-time measurement and quantification of biological processes, such as metabolic state. Currently, the most accurate metabolic sensors are invasive, and significant cost is required, with few exceptions, to achieve similar accuracy using non-invasive methods. This research, conducted within the Biodesign Institute Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors, leverages the selective reactivity of a chemical sensing solution to develop a sensor which measures acetone in the breath for ketosis and ketoacidosis diagnostics, which is relevant to body weight management and type I diabetes. The sensor displays a gradient of color changes, and the absorbance change is proportional to the acetone concentration in the part- per-million range, making applicable for detection ketosis and ketoacidosis in human breath samples. The colorimetric sensor response can be fitted to a Langmuir-like model for sensor calibration. The sensors best performance comes with turbulent, continuous exposure to the samples, rather than batch sample exposure. With that configuration, these novel sensors offer significant improvements to clinical and at- home measurement of ketosis and ketoacidosis.
ContributorsDenham, Landon (Author) / Forzani, Erica (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Shaopeng (Committee member) / Kulick, Doina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023