COVID BREATHSPEC
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Non-invasive Detection of Pneumonia in context of Covid-19 using Gas Chromatography - Ion Mobility Spectrometry (GC-IMS)
IRAS ID
282014
Contact name
Matthew Reed
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Lothian Research and Development Office
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
The human coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is currently causing a global pandemic. It produces pneumonia and acute lung injury, called coronavirus disease 2019 (or Covid-19). Diagnosis of Covid-19 is carried out by analysis of viral genome taken from a nose swab. Swabs must be sent to a laboratory while the patient is held in isolation awaiting the results, which often take 24 hours to come back and guide clinical care. A more rapid diagnostic approach is required that might allow Covid-19 to be proven or excluded on a patient’s arrival to a hospital’s emergency department. This will markedly speed care and reduce infection of other patients and staff.
The breath is full of multiple volatile organic compounds (VOC) that can be measured using a technique called gas chromatography - ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS). Over 2,000 compounds can be detected, increasing or decreasing in amount depending on body processes, both in the lung and in the body generally. These changes produce a signature that can be detected using the GC-IMS technique in less than 10 min.
We propose to use a miniaturised GC-IMS device, called the BreathSpec, to study the breath of at least 200 patients presenting to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh with clinical features consistent with pneumonia or lung injury due to SARS-CoV-2. A single breath sample will be taken on admission and immediately injected into the BreathSpec device for analysis. The sample is destroyed in this process and cannot be stored for later use. The BreathSpec data will be analysed at the University of Loughborough and Imspex Diagnostics (supplier of BreathSpec) to detect signatures of Covid-19 pneumonia.
Our ambition is to identify a ‘signature’ of Covid-19 pneumonia within 10 min in non-invasively collected breath samples to allow triage of patients into high and low risk patients for Covid-19.
REC name
South East Scotland REC 01
REC reference
20/SS/0042
Date of REC Opinion
25 Mar 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion