Breath Biopsy discovery of biomarkers for IPF

Luisa Quesada-Arias 1, Jose Manuel Martinez Manzano 1, Yichen Chen 2, Jason Cooper 2, Jason Kinchen 2, Planchart Ferretto 1, Maria Angelica 1, Cheryl Nickerson-Nutter 3, Marc Van der Schee 2, Ivan Rosas 1  

1. Brigham And Women's Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, 617-732-5500, USA; 2. Owlstone Medical, 183 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4 0GJ, UK; 3. Three Lakes Foundation, Northbrook, Illinois, USA 

Poster PDF

Abstract: 

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic lung disease associated with progressive and irreversible fibrosis of the lung parenchyma. IPF is thought to produce unique volatile organic compounds (VOCs) detectable on breath that could be applied as diagnostic biomarkers. This study aims to identify new VOC biomarkers differentiating subjects with IPF from healthy control subjects with IPF or controls were enrolled at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA and breath samples were collected, before and after a six-minute walk (SMWT), using the ReCIVA® Breath Sampler.  Samples were then analyzed using thermal desorption gas chromatography mass spectrometry (TD-GC-MS). 129 distinct molecular features (MFs) were detected, which included four potential IPF biomarkers identified by Yamada et al (2017). One of them was validated in our study.  21 additional MFs were found to have tentative evidence of difference (unadjusted P<0.05*) between IPF patients and controls, pre SMWT. Multivariate modeling (including biomarker selection algorithms) was used to reduce candidate molecules to three features.  Replication of these findings in a larger study will be necessary, both to validate observations here but also to extend findings to groups relevant to early disease diagnosis.