Quick Dips

Nosing into Health

An electronic nose is proving promising in the diagnosis of humans with gastric problems, as well as assisting with food quality assurance within the meat industry.

Traditional diagnosis has relied on invasive surgical methods, such as gastroscopy or colonoscopy. An odour detector, which can measure the changes in compounds on human breath, provides a non-invasive way of detecting a gastric disorder.

Research over the past 10 years has produced working models of a volatile chemical analyser, or olfactometer, which map odours by combining gas sensor arrays and various pattern-recognition techniques.

Over the past three years, researchers have been evaluating an electronic nose based on 18 independent metal oxide sensors, with the aim of using it in the meat industry. Its success has led to the suggestion of using it as a possible diagnostic tool for medical conditions likely to result in changes in the volatiles profiles of breath, for example, in cases of diabetes, fasting, gastric, intestinal and liver disorders.

The Fox 4000 electronic nose used has been upgraded with newer sensors that offer a ten times increase in sensitivity. This up-grade should also contribute to better discrimination. AgResearch hopes to use this information to obtain further funding to do a more detailed study of electronic nose technology for application in medical diagnosis.

As well as identifying gastric disorders, this technology might also be applicable to detection of other illnesses such as diabetes and certain liver disorders.