Disposable Sensor Array Embedded in Facemasks for the Identification of Chronic Kidney Disease.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Analytical Chemistry
• Nephrology

Background:

• Chronic kidney disease (CKD) presents a growing global health challenge.
• Simple, cost-effective diagnostic methods are crucial for managing CKD.
• Breath analysis offers a non-invasive approach to detect disease-related biomarkers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a disposable breath sensor array for CKD diagnosis.
• To assess the sensor array's ability to identify CKD patients and stratify disease severity.
• To establish a reliable measurement protocol for breath analysis within a facemask.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a disposable sensor array using porphyrin-PEDOT/PSS blends in FFP2 facemasks.
• Development of a breathing cycle-based measurement protocol to establish a reference.
• Application of continuous wavelet transform and Linear Discriminant Analysis for signal processing and classification.

Main Results:

• The sensor array demonstrated high sensitivity to CKD-related volatile compounds like ammonia.
• CKD patients were identified with 93.3% true positives and 86.7% true negatives.
• The device showed potential for stratifying CKD patients based on renal dysfunction severity.

Conclusions:

• A low-cost, disposable facemask-integrated breath sensor array can effectively diagnose CKD.
• The developed measurement protocol and analysis methods ensure stable and reproducible results.
• This technology holds promise for non-invasive CKD diagnosis and disease progression monitoring.