Quick and easy-to-use diagnostic test kits exist for some medical conditions, but no such tools exist for diagnosing tuberculosis. Tests involving microscopy are easy to perform but yield mediocre results whereas tests involving x-rays, cell cultures, or nucleic acids produce better results but require more expertise to carry out. A new diagnostic device, even if it were only 85% sensitive, could save 195,000 lives per year.

Researchers in the lab of Jose Miguel Trevejo, MD, PhD, are seeking to create a device capable of detecting tuberculosis based upon the mix of volatile organic compounds (VOC's) that each person exhales with each breath. They envision a device that will separate compounds using gas chromatography and that will identify compounds using differential mobility spectrometry (DMS). The latter technique involves ionizing gaseous compounds and then pushing them through electrodes applying an alternating voltage and a constant voltage. The alternating voltage causes ions to drift, and when the constant voltage compensates for the drift, ions pass through the electrodes and hit a detector. The compensating voltage identifies the compound. Dr. Trevejo's team has built a prototype capable of analyzing VOC's released by sputum samples, and they have found almost a dozen tuberculosis-specific VOC's that the system can detect. It also seems that the device can differentiate among regular tuberculosis and drug-resistant strains of the disease. Although the project to create a breath-analyzing device is still far from completion, the approach seems feasible and very promising.

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