Toshiba creates disease diagnosis tool
pharmafile | May 13, 2014 | News story | Medical Communications, Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Disease, Japan, breath analyser, toshiba
Japan’s multinational electronics firm Toshiba has developed a breath-analysing prototype system that it says can be used to diagnose diseases.
Toshiba says the compact breath analyser it has created can detect a wide range of trace gases in exhaled breath, which can then be applied to health monitoring and diagnostics.
Naoko Toyoshima, a chief specialist in Toshiba’s corporate new business development division, says: “We see great potential for the breath analyser, from the health enhancement of exercise regimes and nutritional supplements through to diagnostics.”
Toshiba’s prototype blasts a patient’s exhaled breath with a quantum cascade laser. Gaseous compounds in the breath absorb energy from the laser, then emit the energy in measurable forms that are unique to each compound. The energy emitted is then analysed in a process knows as spectroscopy.
The current prototype can detect acetaldehyde which is the cause of hangovers, it can also spot methane that is the main component in natural gas – which the firm hopes can be used in intestinal disease settings.
It can also detect acetone which is an intermediate of fatty acid metabolism, and an indicator of obesity and diabetes: treatment areas that are of great interest to the pharma industry due to their increasing diagnosis globally.
What the device can’t establish just yet (but Toshiba are hoping it will do shortly): are carbon monoxide (relating to smoking); nitric monoxide (asthma indication) and 13C carbon dioxide (potential ulcer treatment).
In addition to disease monitoring, Toshiba envisions the device being used to guide diet, exercise and nutritional support.
It will begin studying the machine’s ability to correlate acetone concentrations with fat metabolism next month, and hopes to start production to order in 2015.
Toyoshima adds: “We will promote more collaboration with universities and hospitals in order to build a knowledge base for breath analysis and to support wide ranging and practical application.”
Brett Wells
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