A pilot study of faecal volatile organic compounds in faeces from cholera patients in Bangladesh to determine their utility in disease diagnosis

The aim of this pilot study was to analyse the volatile organic compounds in faecal samples collected from cholera patients in Bangladesh to determine biomarkers that could be used for disease diagnosis. Samples were collected from patients at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh and also from healthy controls at the same institution. The volatile organic compounds were extracted from the headspace above the sample using solid phase microextraction and analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. A biomarker was identified in the cholera samples that could be used for disease diagnosis. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. All rights reserved.