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Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Breath Collection from Children for Disease Biomarker Discovery
Published on: February 14, 2019
The scent of Mycobacterium tuberculosis--part II breath
Mona Syhre1, Laurens Manning, Suparat Phuanukoonnon
1Otago University, Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, New Zealand. mona.syhre@otago.ac.nz
Abstract:
Recent figures show that tuberculosis (TB) is advancing and killing more than two million people annually, yet no breakthrough in rapid diagnostics is in sight. Volatile metabolites of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) may provide just that. It is well established that MTB produces nicotinic acid in vitro. We have converted the free acid into methyl nicotinate and detected statistically significant differences in the breath of smear positive patients compared with healthy (smear negative) subjects.
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