Design of a Prototype System to Determine Ammonia Concentration in Exhaled Human Breath in the Diagnosis of Kidney Failure Rajendran Nihitha1, Vinupritha P2,*, Kathirvelu D3 1M. Tech Student, Department of Biomedical Engineering, SRM IST, Kattankulathur, Chennai, India 2Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, SRM IST, Kattankulathur, Chennai, India 3Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, SRM IST, Kattankulathur, Chennai, India *Corresponding Author: Dr P Vinupritha, Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, SRM IST, Kattankulathur, Chennai, India, Email: vinupritha@gmail.com
Online published on 19 August, 2019. Abstract Background The air exhaled contains many types of gases and are the indicators of different and various types of disease. These various types of disease are diagnosed by measuring the concentration of the different gases exhaled by breath. Ammonia gas is represented as the biomarker for the kidney failure patients. Kidney failure is a disease which is determined by extremely high ammonia content in human breath and they have disturbed urea balance. Aim and Objective The work focuses on developing a breath analyser system to detect the concentration of ammonia level for the patients who are suffering from kidney failure. The aim is to diagnose the kidney failure based on the ammonia concentration exhaled in the human breath. Materials and Method The material used in our study to develop a prototype are arduino board, ammonia gas sensor and TFT LCD display. In this study, 20 patients with kidney failure and 20 healthy volunteers were enrolled. The breath samples were collected from each participant by instructing them to blow through the mouth piece. Results The creatinine level and blood urea level of kidney failure patients are 7.93 ± 4.50 mg/dL and 160.72 ± 81.85 mg/dL. The range of breath ammonia level for kidney failure patients is 347.6 ± 84.87 ppb and for normal volunteers is 86.35 ± 12.94 ppb. Conclusion The results of our current study shows that the gas analyser detected more amount of ammonia in the breath of dialysis patients compared to healthy volunteers. Top Keywords Breath analysis, Ammonia gas, Biomarker, Kidney failure, Ammonia gas concentration. Top |