Implementation of the electronic nose technique in prospective samples of saliva and pulmonary exhaled breath from patients with Covid-19, other viral infections, and control patients.

• Grant number: 23/06687-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2023
• End date: March 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine
• Agreement: MRC, UKRI ; Newton Fund, with FAPESP as a partner institution in Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Ester Cerdeira Sabino
• Grantee: Felipe Augusto Dardin
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 18/14389-0 - Brazil-UK Centre for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnosis, Genomics and Epidemiology (CADDE), AP.TEM

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has raised concerns regarding the use and development of screening and diagnostic models that are low-cost, highly sensitive, and widely applicable. The widespread dissemination of this virus makes it difficult to control, making mass testing of individuals an efficient measure for screening and controlling its spread. However, the high cost of tests, coupled with their laboratory complexity and limited accessibility to the entire population, complicates the implementation of this model for epidemiological surveillance in Brazil.Electronic noses have been used to identify a wide range of analytes since their development in 1982. This powerful tool has assisted many fields of knowledge, from medicine to chemistry, and has been applied in various situations, such as wine quality inspection, juice characterization, and tuberculosis diagnosis. Electronic noses work with a series of sensors, each capable of changing its behavior differently when exposed to volatile substances released by the analytes. These collective responses produce a pattern that is sent to a single processing system, allowing the nose to be trained to respond when exposed to the same pattern of volatile substances. In addition to being a device that can be developed entirely with domestic technology, this approach is cost-effective, as it does not rely on the consumption of reagents or consumables.In this regard, we propose an innovative validation that employs the technique of electronic noses for the identification of saliva and exhaled breath samples from diagnosed and hospitalized Covid-19 patients, patients with other viral infections, and control patients (without infections) admitted to HC-FMUSP, in an attempt to validate this testing model as a new diagnostic approach in combating this virus.