Determination of breath isoprene and acetone concentration with a needle-type extraction device in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

Background: Isoprene in human breath is said to be related to cholesterol metabolism, and the possibility of the correlations with some clinical parameters has been studied. However, at this stage, no clear benefit of breath isoprene has been reported for clinical diagnosis. In this work, isoprene and acetone concentrations were measured in the breath of healthy and obese subjects using a needle-type extraction device for subsequent analysis in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to investigate the possibility of these compounds as an indicator of possible diseases.

Breath acetone analysis with miniaturized sample preparation device: in-needle preconcentration and subsequent determination by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy.

A new approach to the determination of human breath acetone with particle-packed sample preparation needle was developed. The extraction needle was packed with a copolymer of methacrylic acid and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the extraction medium. For the analysis of breath sample, exhaled breath was collected in a sampling bag, and 50 mL of the breath sample was extracted with the needle-type sample preparation device followed by analysis using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).