A team from Australia’s University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney has developed an AI-powered breath test for the diagnosis of silicosis.
This rapid and non-invasive method utilises mass spectrometry and AI to detect the lung disease from breath samples, providing results within minutes.
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According to the university, silicosis occurs due to the inhalation of small crystalline particles of silicon dioxide and is a significant occupational health issue in the country.
This research gained backing from the iCare Dust Diseases Board via a Discovery and Innovation grant. The study involved analysing breath samples from 31 subjects with silicosis and 60 healthy controls.
The new technology claims to “differentiate” between affected and unaffected subjects. Those who were to undergo the test were required to breathe into a bag, and the sample was then analysed by a mass spectrometer, to where the breathed content was “pushed”, to identify the molecules that were present.
UNSW noted that the complete process, from breath sampling to analysis, takes under five minutes, making it a practical option for routine worker screening.
Although the test shows significant potential, further validation with larger groups is necessary before it becomes a standard screening tool.
The compact size of the instrument makes it suitable for clinical settings, and future developments may allow for on-site testing.
The researchers aim to refine the technique and incorporate it into screening programmes, as well as to distinguish silicosis from other lung conditions.
Silica exposure can also lead to other diseases, including lung fibrosis and lung cancer.
UNSW’s School of Chemistry professor William Alexander Donald said: “In human breath, there are thousands of organic molecules that you breathe out.
“Our instrument can make a profile of someone’s breath, and then we feed that into an artificial intelligence algorithm that’s really good at finding patterns. In this case, it’s looking for patterns in the organic compounds that are present in the breath of people in the early stages of silicosis. And we’re getting very high accuracies, like over 90% accuracy, for just such a simple, non-invasive breath test.”
