Feasibility of a breath test for monitoring adherence to vaginal administration of antiretroviral microbicide gels.

Adherence to microbicide gel use is critical to optimizing effectiveness in preventing human immunodeficiency virus transmission. The authors hypothesized that ester taggants added to vaginal gels would generate exhaled alcohol and ketone metabolites and provide a "breath test" for vaginal gel use. This 2-arm (vaginal and dermal), randomized, participant-blinded, pilot study tested this hypothesis.

Oral adherence monitoring using a breath test to supplement highly active antiretroviral therapy.

A breath-based adherence system to document ingestion of oral medications (e.g., HAART) was investigated.

Measurement of ethanol in gaseous breath using a miniature gas chromatograph.

We designed and built a novel, miniature gas chromatograph (mGC) to use exhaled breath to estimate blood ethanol concentrations that may offer GC quality sensitivity and specificity, but with portability, reduced size, and decreased cost. We hypothesized that the mGC would accurately estimate the serum ethanol concentration using exhaled breath. Human subjects (n = 8) were dosed with ethanol employing the Widmark criteria, targeting a blood concentration of 0.

Prototype of a breath-based analysis system for medication compliance monitoring.

Poor compliance to prescribed medication regimens in clinical trials continues to be a major obstacle to drug development success and cost reduction, and there is no gold standard technology that is cheap and effective to reliably measure drug compliance. This paper presents a new drug compliance scheme based on the detection of volatile markers in exhaled breath using a commercial off-the-shelf electronic nose (e-nose) system. A mouth air collection system was developed and interfaced with an e-nose for automated sampling and analysis of breath samples.

Adverse impact of temperature and humidity on blood glucose monitoring reliability: a pilot study.

Background: The effect of temperature and humidity on the reliability of glucose monitoring systems (GMS) has not been well reported. We performed a study to determine if the effect of temperature and humidity on glucose values could be accurately predicted.

Methods: Eight GMS, including meter, strips, and glucose control solution (GCS), were placed in an environmental chamber for 50 days.

Fentanyl abuse and dependence: further evidence for second hand exposure hypothesis.

We have proposed a novel hypothesis regarding the potential role of occupational or second-hand exposure in physician substance use, abuse, and addiction. While only 5.6% of licensed physicians in Florida are anesthesiologists, nearly 25% of physicians followed for substance abuse/dependence are anesthesiologists.

Second-hand exposure to aerosolized intravenous anesthetics propofol and fentanyl may cause sensitization and subsequent opiate addiction among anesthesiologists and surgeons.

We hypothesize that aerosolization of anesthetics administered intravenously to patients in the operating room may be an unintended source of exposure to physicians. This may lead to inadvertent sensitization, which is associated with an increased risk for developing addiction. This may contribute to the over-representation of certain specialties among physicians with addiction.

Comparative testing of pulse oximeter probes.

Unlabelled: The testing of pulse oximeter probes is generally limited to the integrity of the electrical circuit and does not include the optical properties of the probes. Few pulse oximeter testers evaluate the accuracy of both the monitor and the probe. We designed a study to compare the accuracy of nonproprietary probes (OSS Medical) designed for use with Nellcor, Datex-Ohmeda, and Criticare pulse oximeter monitors with that of their corresponding proprietary probes by using a commercial off-the-shelf pulse oximeter tester (Index).