The New Technology Developed<\/strong><\/h3>\nIn order to come up with the e-nose, the researchers made use of gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrometry to analyze the odor compounds present in the sebum of those who suffer from PD. However, these instruments are bulky, slow, and expensive. Jun Liu, Xing Chen, and the other colleagues wanted to develop a better and easier model that\u2019s portable and inexpensive. This new GC system will be able to diagnose PD through scent, which makes it ideal for point-of-care testing.<\/p>\n
The researchers are now developing an e-nose that combines GC with a surface acoustic wave sensor that\u2019s designed to measure gaseous compounds through the interaction with a sound wave, and the same time via machine learning algorithms. In order to do so, the experts collected sebum samples from 31 PD patients and 32 healthy controls. They did this by swabbing their upper back with the use of a gauze.<\/p>\n
After which, they analyzed the vaporous organic compounds that come out from the gauze with the e-nose. They had come upon three odor compounds: octanal, hexyl acetate, and perillic aldehyde. They observed how these were significantly varying from both groups. They used the data collected to build a model for PD diagnosis.<\/p>\n
The next step was to analyze the sebum from an additional 12 PD patients and 12 healthy controls. They saw that the model they built had a 70.8 percent accuracy in predicting PD. The model was 91.7 percent sensitive in identifying true PD patients. As of now, the machine\u2019s specificity was only at 50 percent, which meant that it also came with a sufficient rate of false positives. When they used machine learning algorithms to analyze the entire odor profile of the person, the accuracy of diagnosis increased and went up to 79.2 percent.<\/p>\n
There are so many steps yet needed to be passed and before the e-nose is made available for clinic use, the team needs to test it out some more on people. Their goal is to ameliorate the accuracy of the models they already have. They are also looking into factors such as race to consider what needs to be improved, the researchers say.<\/p>\n
The article has already been published in\u00a0ACS<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It has been a practice by both scientists and law enforcers to train sniffing dogs to help them with their jobs. These animals have a seen sense of smell, one that\u2019s better than most humans. Many even choose these canines to sniff out cancer. But there\u2019s also another option. There\u2019s a human with a keen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[1172,16,1171,459],"yoast_head":"\n
Scientists Develop The E-Nose As They Were Inspired By A Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson\u2019s On People\u2019s Skin<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n