Combined sputum hypermethylation and eNose analysis for lung cancer diagnosis.

Aims: The aim of this study is to explore DNA hypermethylation analysis in sputum and exhaled breath analysis for their complementary, non-invasive diagnostic capacity in lung cancer.

Methods: Sputum samples and exhaled breath were prospectively collected from 20 lung cancer patients and 31 COPD controls (Set 1). An additional 18 lung cancer patients and 8 controls only collected exhaled breath as validation set (Set 2).

Noninvasive cardiac output monitoring during exercise testing: Nexfin pulse contour analysis compared to an inert gas rebreathing method and respired gas analysis.

Purpose: Exercise testing is often used to assess cardiac function during physical exertion to obtain diagnostic information. However, this procedure is limited to measuring the electrical activity of the heart using electrocardiography and intermittent blood pressure (BP) measurements and does not involve the continuous assessment of heart functioning. In this study, we compared continuous beat-to-beat pulse contour analysis to monitor noninvasive cardiac output (CO) during exercise with inert gas rebreathing and respired gas analysis.