Breath gas analysis for a potential diagnostic method of neurodegenerative diseases

Exhaled breath analysis is a fast-developing topic to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of the respiratory and systemic diseases. Therefore, we studied the feasibility of a novel method that is based on breath gas analysis to identify neurodegenerative diseases, especially for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). Exhaled breath samples were analyzed using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). For the GC/MS measurements, we collected samples from 24 AD patients, 16 patients with mild cognitive impairment, 22 PD patients and 8 healthy volunteers. All patients and healthy volunteers conducted the comprehensive neuropsychological tests and UPDRS (Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale). Phenol indicated higher concentrations in PD patients compared to healthy volunteers with statistical significance (p<0.01 for Phenol; GC-MS measurements). Furthermore it also showed a positive correlation with the UPDRS part III (Fig. 3; Spearman's rho =.558, p =.016) which represents the disease severity in PD. Analysis of exhaled breath is a non-invasive and totally painless test. Thus it could be an ideal method for the diagnosis of disease. In this study we suggest the feasibility of a novel method to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases.