The need for multicomponent gas standards for breath biomarker analysis

Area of Science:

• Analytical Chemistry
• Biomedical Engineering
• Clinical Diagnostics

Background:

• Exhaled breath analysis offers a non-invasive method for disease detection, yet few breath tests are clinically established.
• Significant research has focused on identifying biomarkers, but translation to practice remains limited.
• Gas calibration standards are essential for accurate biomarker quantitation and building confidence in breath test results.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the current role of gas standards in breath analysis.
• To identify requirements for expanding the use of breath tests in clinical practice.
• To discuss the development and application of multicomponent gas standards for breath analysis.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing forensic and clinical breath tests and their reliance on gas standards.
• Examination of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) gas standards for atmospheric and breath analysis.
• Investigation of gas standards' long-term stability, chemical reactivity, and cylinder interactions.
• Overview of emerging online instruments and their gas standard requirements.

Main Results:

• Confidence in breath tests is built through unambiguous biomarker identification and quantitation, supported by gas calibration standards.
• There is a need for multicomponent gas standards at part-per-trillion to part-per-million concentrations for breath analysis.
• NIST gas standards for atmospheric measurements are relevant to breath analysis.
• Ongoing research is exploring the feasibility of producing multicomponent gas standards at breath-relevant concentrations.

Conclusions:

• Multicomponent gas standards are vital for advancing breath analysis and enabling clinical translation.
• These standards can help investigate interference from endogenous compounds and serve as a basis for specific breath test assays.
• Further development of gas standards will accelerate the adoption of breath diagnostics for various diseases.