Role of Breath Biopsy in COVID-19

COVID-19 is a highly contagious respiratory disease that can be transmitted through human exhaled breath. It has caused immense loss and has challenged the healthcare sector. It has affected the economy of countries and thereby affected numerous sectors. Analysis of human breath samples is an attractive strategy for rapid diagnosis of COVID-19 by monitoring breath biomarkers.

Breath collection is a noninvasive process. Various technologies are employed for detection of breath biomarkers like mass spectrometry, biosensors, artificial learning, and machine learning. These tools have low turnaround time, robustness, and provide onsite results. Also, MS-based approaches are promising tools with high speed, specificity, sensitivity, reproducibility, and broader coverage, as well as its coupling with various chromatographic separation techniques providing better clinical and biochemical understanding of COVID-19 using breath samples.

Herein, we have tried to review the MS-based approaches as well as other techniques used for the analysis of breath samples for COVID-19 diagnosis. We have also highlighted the different breath analyzers being developed for COVID-19 detection.