March 14, 2011
Using a mass spectrometric method, ETH Zurich researchers are able to measure metabolites of a common epilepsy medication directly in exhaled breath. This simplifies testing of patients and represents a step towards personalised medicine.Spoiled meat, pesticides on vegetables or fruit, melamine in milk: there are very few fields of chemical analysis which ETH Zurich Professor Renato Zenobi has not already investigated using mass spectroscopic methods. He has now added another analysis method, which is based on mass spectrometry, to this series: breath analysis to track down metabolites of a widely used drug for treating epilepsy.
“Breath contains hundreds of chemical substances”, says Zenobi, and adds that breath analysis has great potential for medical diagnostics. However, the Professor of Analytical Chemistry at ETH stumbled upon the topic of epilepsy by chance. He says that one of his former coworkers was dependent on the anti-epileptic valproic acid (VPA). This active ingredient suppresses epileptic seizures. However, to clarify the correct dose of the medicine for a patient, the latter must have blood samples taken every few weeks to measure the VPA concentration. In the future, this tedious procedure could be replaced with non-invasive breath analysis, because Zenobi has shown that VPA metabolites are detectable in patients’ breath. Medicines and their metabolites can leave the body through the kidneys or, to a certain extent, via the lungs.
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