Screening for Alcohol-Related Liver Disease Using Breath Signatures by DMS

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alcohol abuse is rampant in the U.S., estimates run as high as 1 in 20 adults, and cost tens of billions of dollars in treatment and economic loss. One especially intransigent problem has been alcohol-induced organ disease such as alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis. These diseases can currently be diagnosed, but this requires invasive procedures such as liver biopsy, which are typically not applied until the disease process is in a late stage. Late detection of organ disease leads to substantially worse outcomes. Organs affected by alcohol, such as the liver, are highly metabolically active, and the compounds produced by the organs are often volatile and therefore appear in the breath. Breath odor profiles are altered by disease processes, for example the clinical odor syndrome called fetor hepaticus in liver disease, and are composed of many compounds which are altered by many metabolic processes, not just the disease process. To determine the exact disease process respons