—POTENTIAL OF USING EXHALED BREATH AS A NEW SAMPLE MATRIX
BY OLOF BECK, PHD, DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE, SECTION OF CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY, KAROLINSKA INSTITUTE
Introduction Although drug testing using urine as the specimen
is a long-established practice and can be performed on solid scientific and legal bases, there is still room for fur- ther developments in drug testing. Present trends can be traced to follow the advent of new mass spectromet- ric technology for improved performance and possibili- ties of bioanalytical investigations1
. Another trend is
the many emerging new psychoactive substances that become atractive to drug users2
interest in alternative specimens for drug testing3 Alcohol testing using breath has been standard for
. Finally, there is the .
many years and is today considered to be evidential and convenient. Breathalyzer technology provides both simple and cheap meters calibrated to display calculated blood concentration as well as technol- ogy for evidential testing using more sophisticated spectroscopic instruments4
. A similar possibility to
perform drug testing using breath as specimen, has been long awaited and can be considered to have an interesting potential. Such a new possibility would enable the development of drug testing to a new level regarding ease, availability and convenience.
Field of breath analysis Breath analysis is a scientific field that was put into
focus in the 1970s with a demonstration using gas chromatography, by Nobel Peace winner Linus Paul- ing, of the presence of a large number of substances in breath5
in breath exceeds 30006
. Today the number of identified components . Te breath analysis field in
general is focused on finding biomarkers of disease. It is generally considered to be non-invasive, easily accessible and mirrors physiological and pathological processes in the body. Among the identified com- ponents of breath, there are a number of nonvolatile substances, i.e., isoprostanes, proteins, and lipids7
.
It is now known that these nonvolatile substances are carried in the exhaled breath as components of bioaerosol particles. Bioaerosol particles are always present in exhaled breath and are formed in the nor- mal breathing process8
. Tese aerosol particles have
been characterised and shown to contain components from the airway lining fluid9
. Until now the sampling
of nonvolatiles have mainly been performed using exhaled breath condensate techniques. Referral of measured concentrations has been made to sampled
32
datia focus
spring 2013
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