Y Lan Pham at the Breath Biopsy Conference 2022
[31 mins] ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGIES IN BREATH ANALYSIS: Cross validation of the peppermint benchmarking study across three analytical platforms
Talk Abstract:
The implementation of non-invasive diagnostic tools that exploit volatile biomarkers in exhaled breath is a desirable, patient-friendly alternative to blood tests [1]. Despite the well-known benefits offered by breath analysis [2], breath-based screening approaches have largely failed to reach the necessary maturity for practical use [3]. Low reproducibility between independent trials on account of non-standardised practices represents a major hurdle for transitioning breath to routine practice. To address this limitation, a benchmarking study (“Peppermint Experiment”) has been proposed to provide a means to characterise sampling and analysis procedures across independent laboratories [4, 5, 6]. The resulting data will allow researchers to evaluate and compare their methods in anevidential manner and help improve the reliability of breath research datasets and outcomes.
The Peppermint Experiment involves measuring the washout profiles of selected volatile constituents of encapsulated peppermint oil in exhaled breath at specific times after its ingestion, ranging from 30 min before capsule ingestion to 60, 90, 165, 285 and 360 min post-ingestion. Unlike previous studies, which have reported ranges of benchmark values within single analytical platform approaches, the present work employed three different analytical platforms to explore the pharmacokinetics of selected terpenes in a cohort of ten volunteers. The three platforms were comprehensive gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCxGC-MS) with a respiration collection for in vivo analysis (ReCIVA) system [7], proton transfer reaction-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (PTR-TOF-MS) interfaced with a buffered end-tidal (BET) breath collection system [8], and GC-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS). The focus of this work was a comparison of the performances of these different systems in determining benchmark values.
Washout profiles from ten participants were determined in triplicate with each of the aforementioned analytical platforms. This talk will discuss the experimental design, report on the outcomes between the analytical platforms (inter-instrumental) and different participants (inter-individual), as well as their repeated measurements (intra-individual), and will highlight the strengths and shortcomings of the Peppermint Experiment.
Speaker Biography:
Y Lan Pham is a research associate at Fraunhofer IVV in Freising, Germany and doctoral candidate in the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. After receiving a Master’s degree in food chemistry from Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg in 2019, Y Lan joined Fraunhofer IVV to pursue a PhD on volatile emissions and metabolomics in relation to human health applications, for which she is currently in her final year. Her research focusses on addressing standardization challenges in breath research, including development and analytical appraisal of breath sampling systems and VOC-based methods in the biomedical sciences field.
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