Application of the electronic nose for uremia diagnosis

Breath analysis provides a way to diagnose diseases by detection of special odors in breaths; one of its clinical applications, electronic nose, has been proved as a non-invasive and rapid tool for diagnosis. In this study, a sensor module of the electronic nose is devised with six 12 MHz AT-cut quartz crystals array. probe peptides are designed with structure-based computer simulation, in which a simulated three-dimensional structure of the olfactory receptor protein (ORP) is docking with target gas molecules, and then synthesized. In the clinical test, this sensor module discriminates breaths from the normal subjects, patients with uremia, patients with chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) and patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) well by the discriminating analysis with a correct classification of 86.78%. In general, the normal subjects can be distinguished completely from the patients. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.