Establishing a functional relationship between the glucose concentrations in exhaled breath condensates and blood
Abstract
Blood glucose level control (glycemic control) is crucial in diabetes and current commercially available measuring tools are inconvenient and stressful leading to few measurements during a day and poor blood glucose level control. More frequent measurements through a convenient non-invasive measurement technique will help diabetic patients with better glycemic control thereby reducing side-effects and serious long term complications of the disease. This work investigates direct measurement of glucose in condensed exhaled breath and the presence of a functional relationship between glucose in exhaled breath condensates (EBCs) and blood. A breath condensing unit was designed and built that measures the temperature of the system, flow rate, removes dead space and measures the volume of air while condensing breath. A very sensitive fluorometric assay was used to analyze and measure the low glucose concentrations in the EBC samples. This work relates to a larger investigation into the feasibility of developing of a new, noninvasive glucose measuring device using condensed exhaled breath. An IRB approved study, using a total of 13 human subjects, was employed to quantitatively evaluate the change in EBC glucose levels as the blood glucose levels was changed over a 3 hour time period. Of the 13 total human subjects, 5 subjects returned to participate in the same procedure 2 more times on different days. The human subjects study results indicate that the EBC glucose levels showed significant increase as blood glucose level increased, and that blood glucose, rate of breathing and subject to subject variability were significant factors in influencing EBC glucose levels. These results provide motivation for the continued investigation in the diabetes related application of glucose measurement with exhaled breath condensates.
Degree
M.S.B.M.E.
Advisors
Rundell, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Biomedical engineering
Off-Campus Purdue Users:
To access this dissertation, please log in to our
proxy server.